Let the Stars Align: My 3rd attempt to return to Orlando (Mouse-Free) PTR

toonaspie

Just a poser
Joined
May 30, 2010
CHAPTER ONE - THE PTR I guess.

Part A: the backstory


Hello everyone.

I'm probably gonna regret this (and the ticker below) when our plans get changed or cancelled last minute or we ultimately decide not to go at all.

But I guess I better start at the beginning. Hope you love long stories. :fish:


So a couple of years ago, I attempted to surprise my friend, (let's call him D.) with a Disney World Vacation as a present for his completion of graduate school. He came down to visit me twice when I doing College Program down there and loved it. I guess the second trip for him was much more meaningful considering his father has just passed away so his mother sent him back down there to cheer him up.

Anyway, the plans I had back in '14 I think it was weren't working out financially and timewise. And eventually I decided to cancel. Plus it turned out D. was having trouble completing the necessary requirements for grad school completion.

Then in March 2016, his mother surprised him with a WDW vacation for him and me through her AAA agent. It was okay at first but things started falling apart when they had gone to the travel agency without me to make the arrangements. (I was out of state at the time.) The reason this peeved me off was because I was the only one who had experience and better know-how of planning a Disney vacation. D's mother did not. So needless to say alot of things had to be altered over the course of the months and the trip would be shorter than it should have been. And the date we would fly out for the trip conflicted with what was supposed to be D.'s graduation in December which meant we would have arrived really late in Orlando that night.

The stress took a hold. I ended up missing the ADR deadline by several months when I finally was mentally ready to start planning. Parts were fun. Others were stressful. I was able to finally pull everything together when last minute kerfuffles began happening. One annoying one was that my friend wanted to spend one day driving to the University of Central Florida so he could interview for a job there. What went through my mind was "You've got to be kidding me?!" I thought the whole idea was ridiculous. The chances of him moving to Florida for this job were low anyway. Plus I lived in Florida for 6 months when I did the college program and it's not a place you want to live when your attire consists always of long sleeves. Thankfully his mother talked him out of it and since his plans to graduate fell through for the 1000th time, we were able to book an earlier flight into Florida that day.

Just our luck, the morning we were to fly into Florida, our city has a nasty morning ice storm. My friend didn't want to get on the road to the airport until it was brighter out for him to see the roads. But by then and halfway to our destination it was obvious we weren't going to make our flight. We went home and booked another flight for the next morning. The insult to injury was that the storm had delayed all other flights...except for ours...the one we had to miss was the only one that was departing on time that morning. So this time around, as a precaution D's mom arranged us to have a hotel room near the airport that night and after waiting nearly one hour to check in we were able to sleep. I managed to alter our dining plans in spite of the changes.

The next morning we make it to the airport. Unlike the flight we had booked the night before, this flight had a connection to Atlanta. We get to the gate and onto the plane. We're sitting in the plane still at the gate for a whole 30 mins after our departure time. Then everyone is forced off the plane. The navigational controls on the plane were broken and could not be fixed. A new plane is arranged for everyone to get on. As my friend and I were waiting at the gate to board the new plane, my name is heard over the announcer and I'm asked to go to the Southwest desk. They inform me that no more flights were going in Orlando today AND the next day. They were pretty much telling me that due to the delays we were going to miss our Atlanta connection and that was pretty much it. My friend and I both agreed that the vacation was over because our vacation originally meant for five days was now cut down to two (including the return flight).

Thankfully D's mom bought travel insurance so everyone got 95% of their money back and we got two plane tickets that D. and I must use before Christmas of this year before they expire.

D. understandably did NOT want to do a 2nd attempt at WDW in December again. If we were to go it would have to be during the one week he had off between the end of university semester and summer school (2nd week of May). And he didn't want to plan ahead because he felt that planning ahead everything (including our flight) was what cursed our trip.

He and his mom don't understand how insane it is to plan a Disney trip and how much advancement is necessary. We had already missed the ADR booking since this return trip would be under the 6 month deadline. But what happened in December took such a toll on me that I even avoided these boards for a while.

Now closer and closer to May, we have to decide what to do with our plane tickets. They're under our names so they're nontransferable. After some hesitation I explained to D. how stressed I was with the idea of trying to do last minute planning for a WDW vacay and I proposed Universal Orlando-only vacation instead.

I saw the pros over cons of UOR. Aside from it being a new experience for us, we wouldn't need so many days to take in and experience everything so I won't be missing too many days of work, plus the package deals and the crowd control situation looked good. Plus this might be the only time we'll ever be able to go. (No way in heck would it be possible for us to ever do Disney AND Universal together.) Best of all: Less planning ahead! No having to race against others to make reservations for rides and restaurants!

And it looks like D's on board with it.

So here we are. Are we going to make it to Orlando this time? Will D. finally graduate in May? Am I crazy for starting this PTR before anything is even bought or reserved? Stay tuned and we'll find out together. :worried:
 
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Sending some mummy (from the Mummy ride at Universal) dust your way that all will work as planned. Universal is much more laid back trip. Plane ticket, onsite hotel, park tickets done.

Will watch for future updates. If you need any help just ask someone will jump in and answer.
 
...don't understand how insane it is to plan a Disney trip and how much advancement is necessary.

So true! We are doing our first non-Disney Orlando trip next month and the planning is much more relaxing! Catch up here to see what's new, get an idea of where you want to eat and let the rest take care of itself. :D

I hope that your plans materialize and you're on your way to a stress-free vacation! Can't wait to see what happens! :)
 
You'll make this trip and will love it

No ice or snow storms in the forecast at this point for May.....


Many will be able to guide you if you need I do or help

Post your ?'s on the main forum as that site has regular activity
 


BOOKED! :woohoo:

Me and D.
May 7th-10th
Cabana Bay Beach Resort


We still have to book the flight which D's mom says she can do herself but is waiting till Monday so I am a bit anxious about that. :scared: Since it looks like we're doing a very early morning flight, she's also booking us a room near the airport the night before we head out. It's the same one I believe we stayed at the night before our trip got officially cancelled and it seemed like the better deal since they let people park their cars there instead of using the airport lot if you're a guest there.

That's one major step complete. We'll see if the other steps follow.
 
Part B: the planning


Welp as I said before, we're going into UOR for the first time practically blind. But I'm not completely oblivious to all there is to do there.

Our biggest must dos will no doubt be The Simpsons and Harry Potter. Everything else from there will be icing on the cake.

Because I am not a high thrills/heights coaster person, there are at least four attractions we will NOT be doing. They are: Rip Ride Rock-it, Dr. Doom's Fearful, Hulk Coaster, and Dueling Dragons.

We're not pool people so missing out on Volcano Bay will be no big.

Dinner at Toothsome seems like a Universal obligation now. So yeah, gotta do that at least once. :thumbsup2 Cowfish looks interesting as well.

We opted for no dining plans so that we can eat when, where, and what we want at our own pace.

With all that in mind, let's get to the day-by-day planning.

May 7 plan

Our flight to Orlando is at 6AM, you heard me. That's 6 IN THE FREAKIN' MORNING! We were very limited in our flights times for that date. I worry it's far too early for D. who needs 40-90 mins of showering to get started on his day. We're getting a hotel near the airport but even with that he'd still have to get up somewhere between 3-4am. I should probably make sure he can handle that. I'm the opposite of D, as I normally can just roll out of bed and take my showers later in the day. We do need to get there early so we don't end up in the back of the plane. When I went to TX to visit relatives last year, I was in the very back row, nearly vomited and spent the whole day having arrived there sick. Not something you really want to happen when you're planning on being in Orlando that very morning.

Plane lands in Orlando at 8:20am so I estimate we'll be at CBBR by around 9am-ish. That's over six hours without a room! Hope D. is prepared for that too. :tongue: I know we'll have to drop our baggage off at the front desk. Dunno if we'll need to use lockers, but we'll try and avoid it.

With all this in mind, we're gonna take things slow since there will be 2.5 full days after the first. Breakfast at Bayliner Diner first, then bus it to UO. Universal Studios first of course. The one thing we won't be doing in that park on our first day is Harry Potter. That's going to be a special themed day. Don't wanna do ALL the good stuff all at once. Outside of that we plan to do a good number of USF stuff on first day. (Jimmy Fallon depending on return times). Again we plan to take it easy. We will then leave around 4pm to return to the hotel to see if our room is ready and possibly rest a spell.

I have a few options in mind for evening plans. We will likely do dinner at CityWalk but don't know how long this will take. I'm aware that IOA closes at 7. In fact USF also closes at 7 on this particular day so returning to the parks may not even be an option either way. If we were to get to IOA for even an hour, I'm thinking we do the water rides (Ripsaw Falls and Popeye Barges). Since we'll be soaking wet we can head straight back to the hotel afterwards no problem. If not, I'm thinking we might go and see Blue Man Group that night after dinner. (Would be the best night to go out of the three nights we'll be there given the early times.)

Or we could (for our pre 4pm plan) do 2-3 hrs at USF and then 2-3 hrs at IOA.

These are just a few ideas for day one. Any suggestions would be welcome. I'm thinking the next day be our big Harry Potter day? I'll talk more about that in a separate post.
 
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Assume you will be at the airport by 4:45 for a 6:00 flight

You'll probably be ready to leave the parks at 4 and take an hour or two rest at the hotel

Your room should be ready by that time

Request a text from the hotel when your room is ready

Hit city walk around 8 for dinner then explore the hotel before you call it a night


If weather is warm, you could do the last 1.5 hours the park is open for water rides

I think a lot depends when your room is ready...

Some peeps request to be assigned to the first room available
Location is not important to them and go with the first released room in the inventory
 


The most I intend on requesting is being close to the lobby but it's not a super important request. We'll just see what's available once we get there. I believe they're wrapping up on the new towers so construction noise won't be an issue. And I hedging my bets that the pools won't be so loud since it's the slow season. (Package required we get Poolside room.)
 
Here's a rough draft of my Day One plan which would oddly enough fit in ALL the major attractions we wanted to do outside of WWOHP (plus some interesting extras) at USF on the first day. I don't think that's gonna happen however. Some of the stuff might be saved for later days...particularly Despicable Me and maybe Jimmy Fallon depending on return times.

https://touringplans.com/plans/2451679
 
Boo hoo

Link says not a member and could read anything

Probably the same problem I had last time I've tried to post a Touring Plan up. :badpc:

Instead of wasting a whole day figuring this out, I'm just gonna summarize what it said:

All rides approx 5-10 minute wait basically. Except for Despicable Me and Jimmy Fallon, both of which are estimated 30 min waits. Not bad for a Sunday. (Expected crowd level 3). Might end the day with the 3pm showing of Animal Actors before heading back to the hotel.

Gonna play around with Monday and Tuesday and see what results.
 
Happy Easter Everyone.

Gonna wrap up my game plan for the trip. I still astound myself with how much free time I will still have leftover.

May 8 - Harry Potter Day

I'm kinda disappointed that my plans for the ultimate HP day aren't gonna work out just right. IOA is the only park with EE all the days I will be there. I really would wish they would alternate between the two parks during slow season. Cause my original plan was to begin the day with breakfast at Leaky Cauldron. Probably gonna have breakfast at the hotel instead. I still want to start the day off at USF (similar to how Harry began his experience at Diagon Alley). If we make it to rope drop we might go straight to Despicable Me first in the event that it's failed to be done the day before. Then it's straight to Harry Potter world for the rest of the day. Halfway in the day, we'll take the Hogwarts Express to IOA to visit Hogsmeade.

May 9 - IOA

We'll be spending most of the day doing IOA stuff non HP. Though we might do breakfast at Three Broomsticks to start, we shall see. Sometime around 4pmish we'll take the Hogwarts Express back to USF to catch the parade and the night show.

May 10 - End Day

Take advantage of EE at IOA to do any worthy repeats there and then at USF then it's off to the airport around Noon.
 
You'll find ways to fill up your "free time"

Hopefully no rides will go down and your schedule will go as planned
 
Would you believe I'm already regretting not splurging on a deluxe hotel? I mean it was a $500 difference even between CBBR and RPR (with not much difference between RPR and PBH). But asking for D.'s mom to pay an extra $500 (plus upcharges for any changes on top of that) would be insane. She's paying much less than what she was gonna pay for the Disney vacay that got cancelled (I think it was around $1700 at a value resort during the major holiday season). I didn't even think to let D. pick what hotel would have interested him. :joker: Oh wells.

I may have done a miscalculation in my TP for the first day I am down there (forgot to add a couple of attractions). So I'm thinking it might be worth it to get EP just for that day (but just the reg. EP, not the unlimited, and for USF only) so at least that way we're guarantee to knock off a good amt of stuff on our first day. We're arriving on a Sunday which will be a little busier but the rest of the time we're there will be slower so EP hopefully won't be needed. We'll have to rope drop Kong on one of our mornings because that will the biggest wait we'll have to face without EP.

I suppose with Universal, it's all a game of Money/Time Roulette. :flower1:
 
If you could change your dates at Cbay for a two night stay and book your arrival date at the cheapest rate at one of the deluxe hotels, uou could tour the parks differently

Do check in at rpr (or hrh or pbh)
On arrival day

This will give you free unlimited ep for check in day and check out day
Run the numbers of the extra cost for the deluxe compared to two days of free ep for you and your group

On second day get up early and leave your bags with valet
Check out of the hotel and hit the parks

You can get your luggage after you leave the parks that day and move over to Cbay that evening

All on site hotels allow you EE
 
I don't think that I would be able to "save" Harry Potter for later LOL. You're going to be there just a couple days before us and we are hoping for minimal crowds too (after Spring Break/before school lets out). :thumbsup2 I recommend doing the Harry Potter stuff either early in the morning or in the evening. It gets really crowded in the middle of the day. I hope that you have a wonderful time! :) (Oh, and good luck with that 6:00am flight!)
 
I think making any changes at the point will be too much hassle and money than it's worth. I'll stick with CBBR. However I do plan on getting EP for one day at least.

TP says crowd level is 3 @ USF for Sun (IOA @ 2). The next three days will be a straight 2 for both parks. (Orlando Informer says "Moderate" for all four days so I dunno who's crowd calendar to trust. :confused3

So, I'm thinking of getting reg EP for that Sun. The question is whether or not to pay a lil' for that 2park EP with no guarantee of making it to IOA that day. I'm thinking yes. It will require some rearranging for my first day (as in save some USF stuff for another day and focus on the ones where EP is most critical). I would like to get a couple of water rides done at IOA before returning to the hotel so that we can dry up. But this way I don't think I'll need to buy EP for any of the other days (and we'll still have plenty of time to cover everything and more). I will still save much more money and time with this. The EP which will total about $130 for 2 (provided the price don't go up) will come out of my pocket. Still cheaper than the Disney World Xmas party tickets I almost didn't get refunded for. :tilt: I'm working with the info the Universal website is giving me. Of course anything can change but keeping my fingers crossed none the less.

I don't think that I would be able to "save" Harry Potter for later LOL. You're going to be there just a couple days before us and we are hoping for minimal crowds too (after Spring Break/before school lets out). :thumbsup2 I recommend doing the Harry Potter stuff either early in the morning or in the evening. It gets really crowded in the middle of the day. I hope that you have a wonderful time! :) (Oh, and good luck with that 6:00am flight!)

HP will be an all day thing on my second day. (I can't wait either pixiedust:) I'm thinking Monday will be less crowded than Sunday for HP anyway. Also, I want it to be an all-day immersive experience so I won't mind waiting on those rides.

LOL yes that 6am flight is gonna stink for us both! I don't think sleeping on the plane will do much either. We're getting a hotel near the airport but last time we were there it took nearly two hours from check in for a room to open up. So we'll need to get there early, sleep early, and avoid ALL the caffeines! :faint: That's another reason I wanna get EP for our first day, cause I think I'll be too tired to strategize getting as much stuff done and possible (don't wanna fall asleep in the lines either :rotfl:).
 
I think your plan will work fine now that you explained it all

You can always wait and buy the ep while in the park
I know the main merch stores can sell the ep so you don't have to go to guest service for them

Judge the crowd in the park
If you see the wait boards in the park listing long waits, that can help you decide to buy the ep that day

Whatever you decide, I'm sure it will work out great!

Enjoy your trip to the darkside!!!

(And come back to share how the trip
went)
 
I called the AAA agent this morning (why didn't I think of this before I had no idea). Anyway, I inquired about how much it would cost to upgrade our tickets to a park2park w/Unlimited bundle and she said it would be an additional $278 for the four days we'll be there. We're doing the Buy 2 get 2 Days free deal so this would basically be a discount but I think that's still too pricey for it to be a worthy investment. I'm thinking of just sticking with my original plan of just getting 2p2 Express Pass for that first day only and save the money.

With that decision made, it all comes down to what attractions we should focus on in both parks with our EP for that day (Sun May 7). We would only have about about 6 hrs for both parks this day.

I'm thinking...

USF
Despicable Me
Shrek 4-D
Transformers
Simpsons Ride
*not sure what the deal is w/ Jimmy Fallon and whether or not EP is used

IOA
Skull Island: Reign of Kong
Poseidon's Fury
Ripsaw Falls
JP River Adventure

Lemme know your thoughts on this. Again we won't be doing: RipRideRockit, Dr Dooms Fearfall, Dueling Dragons, or Hulk Coaster on this trip.
 

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