October 2016....yes we're going to Disney "again"

[Disneymom1126]

Started the countdown at 101 days - down to 5 weeks!

 

[skier_pete]

Hi there! I saw your post over on the News board in the "Rivers of Light in October?" thread, and noticed your dates are co-incide with ours, so I thought I would stop over and check out your plans. Your DD is so adorable! Our DD (who's now 13) never would dress up as a Princess, so we never even got that phase. We are getting honored with the crabby anti-Disney teenager phase, though!

Like most people here - totally sympathize with the funny looks of "you are going to Disney again?" We started out with our first trip with DD in 2006, and then ended up kept planning another trip, and another...We just embrace it now - "Yes, we're crazed, but we don't care!"

We will also be at Animal Kingdom Lodge - we bought DVC there in 2014 (embrace the crazy), but we haven't yet stayed at that resort on our DVC - we rented points in 2010. You will get very spoiled with the 1-bedroom. DW and I stayed in a 1-bedroom for 4 nights on our first trip as owners in 2014 at SSR because it was short notice. The Savannah view rooms are great also. We are actually at Jambo while you are at Kidani - and moving over to Kidani for the 2nd half of our stay.

Make sure your friends put in a room request for you to be (a) close to the lobby and (b) lower floor - in that priority order. You mentioned not liking the walk at AoA, but honestly if you are at Kidani at the far end of the building, you will think there is no longer walk on the planet than the walk from your room to the lobby/bus stop. You will be much happier to be near the lobby. Also, if you can get a lower floor, it makes a big difference when it comes to seeing the animals. Both are fine, but lower is better.

We love POFQ a lot - we stayed there 3 times from 2006-2008. Similarly here put in a building request for 2,4, or 5. The outer buildings are not THAT far, but being near the center is always best! Our first stay there they put us in literally the furthest out room in the entire resort. We requested a move the next day. (I have foot problems that were at the time worse than they are now, and I had a hard time walking distances.)

Looks like we might cross paths on a few days. I see Oct 15th at DHS, Oct 18th at MK and Oct 19th at Epcot we are at the same parks at the very least. If you are interested in our plans here's a link to Our Pre Trip / Trip Report. I am not really writing a Pre-Trip Report as such - but have been posting our plans in what will eventually be our Trip Report. (I only started it a few weeks ago.) If you check it out, you'll see we are already meeting up with a ton of other DISers, but always happy to meet some more! Maybe we can set a time to at least say "Hi" in person.

Not sure yet whether we will be in the few studios available at Jambo House or if we will be at Kidani Village as we can't book until April 1st (when our friends points become available).

(Posted on April 1st) I mentioned we were renting DVC points from a friend and staying at AKL -- we hadn't actually booked the trip yet because it isn't their home resort so we had to wait until 7 months out...well..wouldn't you know there was no availability for our trip! Definitely had a few stressed hours because we were really pumped to be staying at AKL...

So I read through all your posts - and I just had to make a comment upon reading these two above. It does you little good at this point, but if the opportunity arises in the future to rent points from your friends I thought I would mention it. (And I could be completely mis-understanding things.) What I don't understand is that your posts show that your friends couldn't try to book your room until April 1st. However, the way the 7 month window works is you can book 7-months in advance of the first day of the trip. So - they SHOULD have been able to book you a room on March 14th - not April 1st. October is a very busy time of year for DVC - but I still would have expected that they could have gotten you a studio had they booked right on March 14th. If they did in fact wait to book until April 1st, that is likely why you weren't able to get a studio. Is it possible they are confused by what the "7 month window" means exactly? I am surprised to find that there are many DVC owners that don't fully understand how the system works - so I'm thinking maybe they think for some reason you have to wait until the start of the month to book or maybe even the start of their use year - which also wouldn't be correct. I just can't think of any scenario where they would've had to wait until April 1st. As I said, it doesn't do you much good now, and it could be a touchy subject to question them on their own DVC membership (especially since they are being generous to rent you their points) - but it might be useful for you to know this if there is ever a next time.

 

[Disneymom1126]

@skier_pete thanks for stopping by! My friends are relatively new DVC owners, so I believe they did think they had to wait until the start of their use year to book! We've all definitely learned our lesson for next time! While it would have been great to stay at AKL the whole time, I'm also excited to check out POFQ!

Thanks also for the room request suggestions. I definitely planned to put close to lobby because I've heard how long the walk is for some rooms at Kidani, but it's helpful to know a lower floor is better for animal viewing!

I will definitately check out your trip report for more ideas for our trip and will keep my eye out for you and your family! DD has outgrown princess dresses at this point aside from going as Elena to MNSSHP in fact at HS you're most likely to see us around Tower of Terror - her fav ride lol

 

[skier_pete]

We can't convince DD to try Tower of Terror. Admittedly she rode Expedition Everest last year and Dinosaur (with her eyes closed the whole time) and didn't like either of them...so my hopes aren't high she'll ever like ToT. I ride it solo pretty much every time.

 

[Disneymom1126]

We can't convince DD to try Tower of Terror. Admittedly she rode Expedition Everest last year and Dinosaur (with her eyes closed the whole time) and didn't like either of them...so my hopes aren't high she'll ever like ToT. I ride it solo pretty much every time.

Haha! DD make me put my arm around her and then she puts my hand over her eyes when she is scared when we ride Dinosaur...we rode with my hand over her eyes for the entire ride - the picture is hilarious! She loves roller coasters, but Dinosaur is pretty life-like so that's what scares her!

 

[Disneymom1126]

30 days out and a visit from Captain Hook!

 

[skier_pete]

Haha! That's awesome. I wouldn't want to be the one to clean up after she tries to fly with that Pixie dust.

 

[IowaTater]

Haha! That's great!

 

[Disneymom1126]

Oh Disney....you just had to go and update park hours less than 30 days till our trip and mess up my plans...lol!!! The bad news...MK is now opening at 8 a.m. on the day we had our PPO ADR at BOG...the good news - I probably have no business eating that $20 cronut anyway! I cancelled the breakfast and we'll hit rope drop. Surprisingly there was a ton of lunch-time availability at the park that day, so we've picked up a lunch ADR to test out Skipper Canteen. While we like BOG, we have a dinner ADR later in the week and one of the big factors in the BOG Breakfast decision was the benefit of being in the park early and being back in Fantasyland in front of the rope drop crowd. Now...I've got to think on whether or not we're going to be able to make the 7a.m. EMH on Friday of our trip and still make it through all of MNSSHP! We were planning the 8am rope drop with an afternoon break, but 7 a.m. may be pushing it! Then again...I bet the lines will be non-existent for that first hour!

 

[skier_pete]

Hey, thanks for posting this heads up. They also moved park closing later on Saturday, so Saturday (the next day) went from 9 AM to 10 PM to 8 AM to 12 AM, three extra hours!

I don't know how you and your DD could do it. Our daughter poops out about 8-9 PM and that is IT for her. And that's if we don't start the day super early. I couldn't imagine taking her to the park for 7 AM and then trying to keep her out until midnight. Well - I couldn't do it either without a mid-day nap! We're going the day after you, and we were going to go for the 8 AM Rope Drop. Probably means out daughter won't join us in the evening though. Of course we've got the ease of letting her go back to the room and we can keep going. (Funny that us parents have more stamina than our kid at Disney.)

 

[Disneymom1126]

Hey, thanks for posting this heads up. They also moved park closing later on Saturday, so Saturday (the next day) went from 9 AM to 10 PM to 8 AM to 12 AM, three extra hours!

I don't know how you and your DD could do it. Our daughter poops out about 8-9 PM and that is IT for her. And that's if we don't start the day super early. I couldn't imagine taking her to the park for 7 AM and then trying to keep her out until midnight. Well - I couldn't do it either without a mid-day nap! We're going the day after you, and we were going to go for the 8 AM Rope Drop. Probably means out daughter won't join us in the evening though. Of course we've got the ease of letting her go back to the room and we can keep going. (Funny that us parents have more stamina than our kid at Disney.)

Sure! And yeah...DD is not like most kids! On her first trip at 4.5 she made it from rope drop through midnight/MVMCP without an afternoon break and she walked the whole time! I swear she had limitless energy!

 

[Disneymom1126]

Magic Bands (both sets are here). We are getting excited! Just went to Target today and picked up incidentals for the trip. I'm starting to get things together for packing - I know we have three weeks left, but work is pretty busy between now and the trip so I'm pulling things together as I have the time!

 

[IowaTater]

The Magic Bands are awesome! We got ours all dolled up too now!

I'm already starting to pack too so you're not the only one. Temperatures are finally starting to dip here which means we can start packing our summer clothes.

Disney Day is coming up quickly!!!

 

[skier_pete]

I just could care less about dolling up our MB - but then I'm a guy. All I really want from my MB is for it to function as a watch, and Disney won't give me that. They actually made two sliders that did that, but the one that WASN'T Minnie Mouse was not available anywhere. Hoping this trip I can get one, or I'm going to build my own dammit!

But seriously, those are very cute. DD bought several sliders last trip - I've already put them on her new band.

 

[Disneymom1126]

The Magic Bands are awesome! We got ours all dolled up too now!

I'm already starting to pack too so you're not the only one. Temperatures are finally starting to dip here which means we can start packing our summer clothes.

Disney Day is coming up quickly!!!

Thanks!! I'm interested to see how they hold up - we did nail polish/glitter/temporary tattoos the last trip and I just didn't have it in me to do all that this time lol!

Same here with the weather - we are in that weird weather phase where it's in the 50's in the morning and 70's in the afternoon (which is the weather I love!), but definitely time that we can put away the shorts and start packing them!

 

[Disneymom1126]

I just could care less about dolling up our MB - but then I'm a guy.

Too funny! I hope you find a watch slider so it can be much more functional for you lol. We haven't checked out the sliders yet, we did have some of the bandits once, but DD thought they were too big/annoying. We will have to check out the sliders

 

[Disneymom1126]

We had another visitor last night! Two weeks to go!

 

[nursejackie]

We are very jealous of your magic bands. As we live in England we have to collect our magic bands on arrival at the resorts (AKL Kidani and OKW this year) as they don't post overseas

 

[Disneymom1126]

We are very jealous of your magic bands. As we live in England we have to collect our magic bands on arrival at the resorts (AKL Kidani and OKW this year) as they don't post overseas

The company we used might be a good solution for you and they are actually located somewhere in the UK. You can design your own magic band "skins" which is what we did and then they just stick on the magic band. You can do one like ours that is two-sided with the Mickey head open in the middle or you can do one that covers the whole band. I just used images I pulled from the internet to design ours. Do a google search for Magic My Band and you should find the company. They're priced pretty reasonably as well - I think it was like $6 per magic band skin that we made!

 

[Disneymom1126]

So today we are officially in the single-digits of our countdown to Disney! It has been a crazy few weeks and I had hoped to post more here, but I've just been swamped! I took on an interim role at work in July and just two weeks prior had applied for a job that would be a pretty significant promotion. A few weeks ago I was offered that job!!! Because the office I'm in an interim role in is significantly short-staffed, I've begun splitting time between the two offices. If I haven't mentioned before I work at a University and one my interim role has me overseeing a few student-run organizations. Lots of evening hours lately!! Last week I had hit 40 hours worked by Wednesday and this week is going to be much of the same. I'm so glad I did so much Disney planning early because if I had to do it right now, it would be a disaster! haha!

We've made a few changes in our plan for the various days and at this point, unless something is actually announced related to Rivers of Light, I don't envision the plans changing too much if at all! I also started packing last weekend and mostly just have the things left to pack that we are currently using and so can't pack them right away.

Here's where we are at (the abridged version) for our plans!

Saturday, October 15th -

No big changes, we switched our night plans around a bit because we found out the Star Wars fireworks aren't being offered on our 2nd night in HS, so we are catching those on Saturday and Fantasmic on Thursday. Also looking forward to meeting up with @skier_pete and his family for the fireworks!

Sunday, October 16th -

Only change is that Disney bumped the opening hour to 8 a.m. and we had an 8am BOG reservation...we've eaten there before and were really mostly doing it to get a head start on the day/empty main street pictures that sort of thing, so we cancelled that and are trying out Skipper Canteen for lunch instead!

Monday, October 17th -
No changes....just holding out hope for some previews of Rivers of Light - even if we can't get into the space, we'll try and find a spot with a view around the lake somewhere and report back on it! We also may not take an afternoon break - if DD wants to do the animal trails and take the train out to Planet Watch then we will likely stay in the park...otherwise we'll take the afternoon break and come back for the nighttime entertainment (and a night ride on EE!)

Tuesday, October 18th - no changes

Wednesday, October 19th - no changes - again we may or may not take an afternoon break depending on how we're feeling

Thursday, October 20th - no changes aside from discovering we can't take a bus from Disney Springs to HS directly, so we'll need to plan some extra travel time in - probably boat over to SS and then take the bus from there!

Friday, October 21st - we are going to try and do the 7 a.m. EMH, but won't push it if we're tired, especially since we'll be doing the Halloween party and be up past midnight. Also, based on some reviews of the parties thus far, I think we are going to try and watch the 1st parade and the meet characters after Hallowishes/when the 2nd parade is going. The first few parties haven't been sold out though, so I'm going to watch the parties in October and if the reports change about the 1st parade, we'll go back to the plan to watch it second. We don't have any real priorities at the party aside from the parade and Hallowishes so we'll likely do lots of rides, meet whatever characters we decide we want to meet that night (we aren't meeting Jack & Sally or Seven Dwarfs so the rest are do-able as day of decisions), trick or treat, etc.

Getting excited! We have one more "visitor" coming to our house on the day before our trip so I'll post a picture when that visitor stops by!