Now for a change...I'm Surprising Mom!!!! | Jan '16 PTR Update: IT'S TOMORROW!!

[MouseketeerKelsey]

Well hello there! Here I am again with yet another, last minute PTR! I am a passholder so last minute trips aren't uncommon. My last PTR was an insane whirlwind on emotions that ended up with a shortened trip with my dad instead of my mom! Because that happened, my dad got a pass and we didn't renew my moms. Well, her birthday is January 13th and my dad and I decided to surprise her and split the cost of her pass and give it to her as a present! But....we wanted to go one step farther.

We are surprising her with a trip to Disney too! She doesn't know it yet, but she will be spending her actual birthday at Disney World!!!

But we are getting ahead of ourselves, let me introduce you to our cast of characters!

First up, me! I'm Kelsey. I just turned 20. I am a singer/youtuber (yup, my actual job) and a Disney addict. I have lived in Florida my whole life and this is my 2nd year as a passholder. I am an avid pin collector and Magic Kingdom is my favorite park. I love Stitch, Thunder Mountain and Belle and can't get enough Mickey Pretzels when I'm at the park. I've also never been to Animal Kingdom. I know, shocking. At first I just never had gotten there and then it became a thing. After I went to both parks in California, it became the only US park I hadn't been to and I kind of wanted to keep it for as long as I could.

(that's me)

Next, my dad. Aka Jeff to everyone else. Until this month, my dad hadn't been to any Disney park in 3 years and hadn't been to a park besides Magic Kingdom in almost 8. I do Disney very differently now than back then and he had a blast! He also has a pass now and can't wait to go back. He has even gotten into helping me with my pin collection. He knows what ones we are looking for and keeps an eye out for me. I honestly have no idea what his favorites are but I'll ask him tomorrow and put it in my next update. He hasn't been to Animal Kingdom ever.

(this is an old picture of when we went to MK for my 16th birthday)

Last but not least is my mom. Also known as Kathy, but not to me. She's mom. She had a pass last year and we went a lot. She loves Disney but not quite the way I do. She also loves how much I love Disney. She loves Cinderella and 7DMT and Pooh. Magic Kingdom is her favorite park, but Epcot is a close second. She also hasn't been to Animal Kingdom.

As some of you will know that have followed other PTRs of mine, 2015 was an extremely hard year for my whole family and we have used Disney as a really positive distraction. I think it will be wonderful to start off 2016 not just with another trip, but with a trip that is going to bring some surprise joy into my moms life as well!

Next up, trip details!

 

[MouseketeerKelsey]

I'm back! Did you miss me? Kidding, it's been an hour. I just couldn't wait to start sharing our plans! This is a quick 2 day trip for my moms birthday, but if you know me you will know that 2 days means anything but a little trip! Since we live close most of our trips are 2 or 3 days because we would rather go for 2 days, 7 times than for 7 days 2 times. Part of it is so that we have more Disney trips in our lives and part is because of my fairly extensive health problems. It becomes very hard on my health to handle more than about 2 days. I am a proud ECV user. I say that because it was really hard for me in the beginning to be okay using one, but I need one. So I go and I decorate my ECV with battery operated christmas lights and remind myself that the scooter allows me to go to Disney. Enough with that, onto some details!

Who: Me, My Mom and My Dad! This is our first trip to Disney all 3 of us in over 4 years and one of only a few ever!

This picture is 2 and a half years old but it is also from one of the best days of my life and we don't have tons of pictures of all of us because one of us is normally taking the pictures

What: A Surprise Birthday Trip for my Mom's Birthday!!!

When: January 13, 2015 - January 14, 2015. The 13th is my moms actual birthday. What I we are doing is surprising her the night before. I have already emailed her boss and gotten the days off for her and told her not to say anything to my mom. I am going to tell her we have to give her one of her presents a little early and I have already wrapped them up. What I did was get a big gift bag and then also wrap each thing in it. My mom knows I collect pins and that I have wanted to get her started with pins and that I just ordered a new pack of 50 online and they got here yesterday. I am going to first give her a Think lanyard, her favorite character. Next a box of pins for her to start a collection. Then a pair of Minnie Ears I made in her favorite color. Finally I have our MagicBands and I got the names on them to say "Kelsey", "Jeff" and "Birthday" so she will be able to tell very easily that those are for the 2 of us that have passes and then one for her because it's her birthday!!!! I assume before she will have an idea of what is happening before she ever gets to the bands especially since we have to give it to her the day before. Initially we wanted to go the 14th-15th so we could give it to her on her birthday and i even booked for then but when I checked Touring Plans it showed horrible crowds on the 15th because MLK Day is that Monday and people will take long weekends and go on Friday. What is really nice is how low the crowds are supposed to be on the days we will be there. It may be the lowest crowd predictions I've ever had for a trip which is FANTASTIC!

Where: We are staying at All Star Movies! Dad and I stayed here on our last trip. We love the Value resorts because we spend so little time there. It is literally a place to sleep for one night between park days. Mom and I normally stay at Pop Century and then I love Music, but Movies had rooms and was discounted! We haven't stayed at All Star Sports yet, but I am sure we will soon enough!

The second part of where is what parks we are going to! We will be spending the day of my Mom's birthday at.....

Magic Kingdom! This is all of our favorite park, especially my Mom's and I honestly think there is no place in the world more amazing to spend your birthday than at Magic Kingdom.

And then something super exciting. For the first time for ANY of us, on the 14th we are going to....

That's right, IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING!! It's time. It will be special for this surprise trip to go to a new park and also I love the idea of the 3 of us getting to go to a new park together because that has never happened. My parents had been to Magic Kingdom and Epcot before I was born, I went to Hollywood Studios before either of them and then I went with my mom and then with my dad, not all 3. I went to Disneyland a year before I went back and my mom came and again, my dad wasn't there. We have never experienced a new park for the first time, together. I can't wait to get to spend time as a family just enjoying and taking in everything that Animal Kingdom has to offer. Obviously I know lots about the park from my time here on the Dis and reading blogs, but please let me know what your favorite things at DAK are. Rides, shows, animals, things to eat, anything at all. Whether it is a really popular thing that everything says is a must-do or just something you or your family loves, I would love to hear about it because this is totally new for us and we want to have the best 1st trip ever!

Why: A birthday, of course! We have spent my Dad's birthday at Disney many, many years ago. We have spend a lot of my birthdays at Disney. My mom has never had her birthday at Disney. I can't wait for her to get a birthday pin and get to have the super fun moments of everyone wishing you happy birthday! I find it so magical and it makes me feel really special and I can not wait for her to have the same! Plus sometimes you even end up with a free cupcake or something like that! Also as I have mentioned before, 2015 was a really hard year for all of us. I know this will sound dramatic or like an exaggeration, but it was the worst year of all of our lives and we are determined to make 2016 better and what better way to start than with our first full family trip in a LONG time. AND to the Happiest Place on Earth!!!

I think that is going to be it for this post! It's strange, since it is so close I kind of feel like there won't be many updates and I want to space them out but on the other hand, there is so much to do and I feel like I could update multiple times a day! I'm sure it will end up being closer to the second because on top of using this to keep all of my planning straight, it always gets me really pumped up for the trip!

I think next up will be ADRs!! Not a ton because it is a short trip, but it's quality, not quantity.

 

[MouseketeerKelsey]

I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Years! Ours was uneventful, but I did make pretzels from scratch so that was quite the event. (They came out fantastic if you were wondering.) Today I thought I would share our ADR plans! With it being a quick, 2 day trip we don't have very many, but they are ones I am excited about!

For my moms birthday I wanted to do something special. Now, we have all had lunch at Be Our Guest. My mom and I loved it, my dad didn't really care for it because he can't get a burger. Well, with how last minute this trip is (again, some things never change) I didn't think there was any chance we would get a lunch reservation. Basically, I was right. However, all of the sudden a reservation shows up for 10:45 AM!!! We never eat lunch this early. Plus, this messes up my normal Disney plan which is to eat a bigger, late lunch so that we don't have to eat until we get back to the hotel. What we decided to do was to make this a cupcake reservation!! What could be more amazing on the morning of your birthday in the Magic Kingdom than to get cupcakes in a beautiful castle!! We figure this way we can grab lunch later in the day, but still get to enjoy the beautiful atmosphere of Be Our Guest!!

It's no secret that I LOVE Disney breakfast buffets. I think it is a great way to start the day. You get to have a nice filling meal before you start your day in the parks and the food is fantastic! I have done lots of character breakfasts over the years and love them, but this time I wanted something a little different. My dad doesn't really care about meeting characters and my mom and I have done lots of character meals. I decided to save a bit of money and skip the characters. We are going to be having breakfast at a place that is completely new to me, Captain's Grille! It looks amazing and I can't wait to check out a new resort because I have never been! We have a 7:30 am ADR so that we can eat and head off to Animal Kingdom for rope drop! I can't wait!

I think that is all for this update because I am at work and should really be working on some writing that isn't PTR related. I'm sure I'll share more later!

 

[Dentam]

I love the birthday cupcakes in the castle idea! I hope things are looking up for your family and that you have a wonderful trip and a fantastic 2016!

 

[MouseketeerKelsey]

Wow, long time, no update. Things kept going wrong with the planning! First, we couldn't get anyone to take care of our dogs. Then my mom turned out having a really important doctors appointment scheduled on Thursday so I had to be a little sneaky and reschedule the appointment for Friday without her finding out. All is good and we are officially all set!

Mom's birthday is Wednesday and we want to get on the road early. Because of this, we are surprising her tomorrow (technically tonight because I haven't slept yet but Tuesday night). I think she is going to be completely shocked. I don't think she has the slightest idea especially considering she doesn't even have a pass anymore!

I really haven't let myself get excited until now. I got the final confirmation that things were going to work at 6pm tonight and that's the first moment I have gotten excited!

What's super fun is that we are going to give her the Magic Bands, tell her how many days and then NOTHING ELSE! Everything that I have planned will be a surprise (and I have some great ones in store!) I even have a surprise for my dad as well! I think I am going to post my touring plan because I am in LOVE with this one and that way I can fill you in on some of my planning!

 

[MouseketeerKelsey]

I love the birthday cupcakes in the castle idea! I hope things are looking up for your family and that you have a wonderful trip and a fantastic 2016!

Thank you so much! I love the idea too! I think it may become a fun tradition for our birthday trips! Things honestly are looking up a lot. It wasn't the best for a while, but we are fighters and plan on making 2016 the best year yet! I hope you had a nice holiday and a good new year so far!

 

[MouseketeerKelsey]

Okay, first up...Magic Kingdom!

Neither me nor either of my parents have ever spent our actual birthday in the parks. My birthday is December 22nd which makes the crowds completely insane so we go in early December. We haven't been to Disney to even celebrate my dad's birthday but his is March 28th so we would go either a few weeks early or late to miss spring break. And for my mom's birthday, we don't typically go because we go in December and it would mean going back only a month later. So, this is a birthday first and I can't think of a more magical place to spend your birthday than in the Magic Kingdom!

I really love the touring plan I made for this day. For me, touring plans are a guide. I typically follow the steps in order, but will for sure change them if we decide to do something different or see a short wait for a ride we love. I have just always found that going with some sort of plan lets you get a lot more done in a lot less time! I made this touring plan to be really relaxed. I minimized walking and calculated for very relaxed walking speed. This is supposed to be a fun, special trip for my mom, I don't want anything at all to be stressful.

The park opens at 9 am and is open until 8pm. I honestly am kind of happy it isn't open really late. Last time we were at MK, it was open until 3 am and we felt pressure from ourselves to stay as late as possible. Since we are pass holders and live close by, we know we will be back which means our days of insane 18 hour days to try and fit everything in are over. There are EMH from 8-10 pm. I have never done nighttime EMH. My dad and I figured we will stay for at least some of it because there is always such a long wait to get out of the park and then again for a bus if you leave after fireworks, might as well spend some of that time on rides!

Now that I have rambled enough, plan time!

1. Magic Kingdom Welcome Show

I still haven't seen this. None of us have. It seems like something always happens to make us miss it or skip it. We have slept through alarms, been stuck in traffic on I4 had to wait for many busses, gotten stuck at breakfast longer than planned or occasionally if Magic Kingdom isn't the first day, sacrifice it for more sleep. This time we are making sure we see it. I have been dying to see it and I think it will be a really amazing way to kick off my mom's birthday!

2. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh is my mom's favorite character and a favorite of the whole family so when it worked to put this in first, I thought it would be fantastic. I like getting a lot of Fantasyland done in the morning because the wait is so much less. Plus, it starts out by making you feel like a child at heart and isn't that what Disney is all about?

3. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

I couldn't get a FP for this and I was nervous that would mean either skipping it or waiting for a really long time. My dad doesn't ride it because he has problems with motion sickness, but my mom and I both love it! Well, when I was putting the plan together in touringplans.com, it showed an estimated wait of 32 minutes. Touringplans honestly has never done me wrong and at least on our trips, the time estimates have been really close to the real waits. My dad is perfectly happy finding a place to sit down and reading his book for 30 minutes (he honestly is, he doesn't see it as a waste of time, he sees it as free time to do something he loves, reading, guilt free!). If the wait is too much more than expected I think we will probably skip it. We can either try to grab a ride during EMH or just let it pass this trip (I hope we don't have to do that.)

At this point there is about an hour of free time in my plan. We don't want to leave Fantasyland area because of our next step. The plan is to walk around, maybe shop a little and even grab a ride or two if there are any short waits. This is all because we are killing time until we head to....

4. Be Our Guest

We have a 10:50 ADR but as I said before, we aren't planning on having lunch. We have all eaten there and decided to skip lunch their this trip, especially because this was the only ADR time I could get and it's just too early for us to eat. However, when I saw the early reservation, an idea hit me. The restaurant itself is so breathtaking, I'll take any reason to go in there. Also, they have amazing desserts. What if we did a special little dessert party at Be Our Guest! I ran the idea past my dad and he loved it. We ordered 3 cupcakes and something else to try. We figure we can all share and get a taste of lots which we normally wouldn't be able to! Here's what we ended up ordering (online advance ordering is amazing):

Obviously, we had to get The Master's Cupcake. My mom and I both love chocolate and love the grey stuff (it really is delicious). My dad isn't as big of a chocolate fan and found it a little sweet. That's okay, we have him covered with...

The Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcake! This is right up his alley and I think he will love it. I may have to steal a little taste of the icing, cream cheese icing is my all time favorite!

If you haven't realized by now, my mom and I are HUGE chocoholics! Last December we split the Master's Cupcake and as much as we liked it, when we saw this go by us we knew we had to try it next time! We will mot likely end up splitting this and the Master's Cupcake, but, that's not all...

For some background, my mom's favorite dessert in the entire world is chocolate mousse. When I saw that the Chocolate Cream Puff was filled with chocolate mousse, it became a no-brainer. However, I didn't want to skip the grey stuff and we had already said we HAD to try the Triple Chocolate, so here we are with an extra. I think we will manage alright

After we have loaded up of birthday celebration sweets, it's back out for more fun!

5. Country Bears Jamboree

When I made my plan, we had a decent gap between lunch and our first FP. Everything we wanted to make sure we did was already in the schedule. This let me add an old favorite. This is my dad's ultimate favorite Disney attraction, second only maybe to Soarin'. I hadn't seen it in years until our most recent trip and I loved every second of it. We weren't going to worry about catching it since we just had, but since we had time and it will give us some time duck out of the cold, why not!

That brings me to a tangent. The weather. Basically, Florida skipped winter this year. It was 87 on Christmas. We just assumed it wasn't coming this year. It still isn't, well, at least not the full season, but we are getting some very chilly Florida weather this week. Keep in mind I have lived in Florida my whole life and my parents have lived in florida for over 35 years so for us, we aren't used to it. The coldest days we have had in winter so far are the 2 days we are going to be at Disney this week. On Wednesday we are looking at a high of 63 and low of 45. For us, that is very cold. I know it doesn't compare to up north, but it is for us. The next day is only looking at being about 65/49. On the bright side, 0% chance of rain and after my last fiasco with the scooter in the rain, I will be glad to not have to deal with any! Now, back to your regularly scheduled touring plan.

6. Space Mountain

This is my mom's favorite ride. I don't go on it. She always skips it because she doesn't want me waiting by myself especially if I am not feeling well. Boy, do I have a surprise for her! I got fastpasses on all 3 of our bands so she could go 3 times if she wants to! I'm not sure if she will go more than once, be done after one, or use them all but the point is that she can ride her favorite ride to her hearts content! Dad and I will probably take a ride on the PeopleMover and maybe squeeze in a go on Buzz while she is riding. Maybe pin trade a bit. That all depends on how long it takes and how many times she wants to ride it which is totally up to her since it is her birthday!

7. Mickey's Philharmagic

I always find this so much fun. We all love Disney soundtracks and music in general. My parents LOVE anything 3d. I love seeing all of the characters and singing along! Plus, my dad has never seen it so it's a must!

At this point depending on the time, we could do one of two things. The way the plan is written as of now is to head to Haunted Mansion. This isn't a must do for any of us. It simply for put in because we had time and hadn't been in a while. We still may ride, but if we are running behind at all, we will just skip it (step 8) and head to our next one!

9. Dream Along With Mickey

None of us have seen the whole show. We have caught bits in passing, but that's it. Since we are going for more of a chill, relaxed day, I thought this would be the prefect time to see it! Even though I am 20 I still love seeing the characters and so does my mom. This also gets us in a good place to head to our next FP!

10. Festival of Fantasy Parade

I don't even have words for how much I love this parade. It makes me cry every time. It brings just such wonderful happiness to my life and for that time, I forget about everything bad in my life. In that moment, I forget my health problems. I forget how much pain I'm in. I forget that I am 6 weeks away from yet another surgery. I forget that when I get back I have to go get my tumor checked again. In those minutes watching this parade, I have no worries in the world. It means that much to me. I got us Fps for it this time. I have never used them before but sometimes it can be a nightmare trying to find a place where I can see from my wheelchair and I thought this would give us a good chance.

The plan is to head to Casey's after Dream Along With Mickey. We are going to grab some corndog nuggets and fries and then head to watch the parade. This way we can eat while we wait and try a food I have heard people rave about! Plus, I happen to know my mom LOVES corndogs. Nothing in this planning is an accident.

11. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor

It's cheesy and we have heard most of the jokes before, but we all love it. It always puts a smile on my face and makes me laugh. This will also give my parents a chance to sit for a little bit after lots of standing for Dream Along With Mickey and the Parade.

12. Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin

This is a personal favorite. We all have such a blast on this. We are all constantly trying to beat each others scores. Well, in reality, my parents are always trying to beat mine. I'm undefeated. Will this be the time my title is taken? Will it be the time I hit 999,999? Tune into my TR after we get back to find out

I actually think I am going to stop here for the moment. It is almost 3:30 am and I have to be up by 8 because tomorrow is a crazy busy day. Last minute prep for a top secret birthday trip means no sleeping in! I have to have everything done before 2 pm because I have 2 doctors appointments in the afternoon and by the time I get done, it will be dinner and time to tell my mom about the trip! I will try and get on to finish telling you guys the plans early tomorrow, but worst comes to worst, I'll finish it all tomorrow night.

I can't wait to see my mom's reaction! I'll make sure I fill you guys in on that too!!