One trip? Witch, please! Make it two! MNSSHP and NYE with Mickey! updated 12/26x3

[xlsm]

I was actually up for this on our trip, one morning when we got there and the line would have been an hour-ish. But we had FPs for later in the day and DH wanted to ride NRJ again while it was a walk-on... okay! I'm sure someday we'll do this standby.


I was helping my cousin's wife buy their tickets at dinner at about 10pm the night before we went to Magic Kingdom...

I really debated getting a FP for NRJ instead since I've heard the line isn't as exciting as FoP, but I wanted to guarantee at least one ride on FoP, and I am afraid I would chicken out of a long wait in the line, LOL!! As of right now, we plan to be at AK really early. We'll see what actually ends up happening.

Ahh!! That would stress me out!!

I'm glad you were able to get all the Fps you wanted! Your plans sound great!

I was honestly prepared for the worst, so it was a great surprise!

Awesome plans!

I'm sad we don't overlap more, but there's potential to run into each other on the 1st...



We're also at Boma for breakfast this day at 8:30, and probably also at Jiko for a late dinner. If you spend the afternoon at AK, we'll be there most of the day

Great luck to get FoP FP for both days! By the time I got on to make FP selections, I only have one time available for a FP for my mom and Nathan: 6:05pm. It was during our original Jiko ADR, so I booked a later Jiko ADR at 8:30, and I'll keep checking for an earlier FoP FP just in case.

We will find a way to cross paths!!

I hope you can find an earlier FoP time. For October, they added more pass times a few weeks before and I was able to get earlier ones. Maybe that will happen again this time around!!

Yum I love the Brown Derby!

I'd pick lunch because I like the options on the a la carte menu better.

Ooo we just made one for Chefs in Dec.

I'd do Boma breakfast and Jiko dinner.

I haven't eaten there in YEARS, even though it's been in my plans a couple of times. We really want to do holiday night time stuff at DHS, and even though we considered going to a resort for a meal (we were thinking Shulas, Bluezoo, or Yachtsman again), we made the decision to stay in the park and do Brown Derby. I'm going to try and get more than the Cobb salad, but...

That's the choice we're probably going with, and for the same reason!! I made the dinner one first when the trip was first a possibility, then found the lunch one later and was too chicken to cancel the dinner yet.

I'm excited about Chefs!! I'm trying to do as many different things as we can.

I made yet another Boma breakfast reservation for 1/2 instead, so we will just do Jiko on 1/1 I think. I end up making changes after I type out my plans, LOL!!

Last time I went during this time we went to MK ON the 31st so at least you're not as crazy as I was! (okay, I was like 22 and wish I was more active on here then because it would have been THE MOST INSANE TR EVER so I'll blame youth and ignorance lol)



Oh I do love Sanaa <3

Since you're coming home on my birthday I am going to 100% live vicariously through you lol

MK actually ON the 31st was too much for me...if I'd been 22 at the time, I'd have probably done the same thing!! (I mean, if I was a normal 22 year old. I had a kid and/or was pregnant then, so in reality it would have been a disaster )

I can't in good conscience be that close to bread service and NOT go there, right??

Your birthday?? Oh, I will try to do a good job with instagram this trip and help you live the moments with us!!

I am also crazy! We will be at MK on the 30th as well



We are also doing Animal Kingdom on January 2nd! And we even have the same three Fastpasses!

Yay!! I'm so glad you are also crazy!! We will definitely have to try and DisMeet during our overlapping days. I'm excited you got the FoP fast pass, too. I was genuinely surprised by how plentiful FPs were for everything during our park days.

Thanks for posting! Enjoyable reading.

Have fun on both trips!

Thanks for reading along!! My PTRs aren't always the most thrilling, but my TRs usually kick it up a notch, LOL!!

October was an awesome trip and I have high hopes for the NYE visit as well.

 

[MeghanEmily]

We will find a way to cross paths!!

I hope you can find an earlier FoP time. For October, they added more pass times a few weeks before and I was able to get earlier ones. Maybe that will happen again this time around!!

Ooh, that's good to know! I'll keep my eyes peeled just in case they do something like that again.

 

[fallonkendra]

We will definitely have to try and DisMeet during our overlapping days.

Definitely! Maybe a drink in the Nomad Lounge at Animal Kingdom on the 2nd or something?

 

[Raeven]

I haven't eaten there in YEARS, even though it's been in my plans a couple of times. We really want to do holiday night time stuff at DHS, and even though we considered going to a resort for a meal (we were thinking Shulas, Bluezoo, or Yachtsman again), we made the decision to stay in the park and do Brown Derby. I'm going to try and get more than the Cobb salad, but...

Yum I can't wait to get the cobb salad again, I plan to try for dessert too

That's the choice we're probably going with, and for the same reason!! I made the dinner one first when the trip was first a possibility, then found the lunch one later and was too chicken to cancel the dinner yet.

I'm excited about Chefs!! I'm trying to do as many different things as we can.

Me too! I've wanted to go to Chefs for awhile too, but it just never fit. I felt like it was too much heavy food to eat then walk around in the heat, so december seems perfect.

I made yet another Boma breakfast reservation for 1/2 instead, so we will just do Jiko on 1/1 I think. I end up making changes after I type out my plans, LOL!!

 

[xlsm]

Ooh, that's good to know! I'll keep my eyes peeled just in case they do something like that again.

Definitely do!!

Definitely! Maybe a drink in the Nomad Lounge at Animal Kingdom on the 2nd or something?

Yes, that would be fun!!

Yum I can't wait to get the cobb salad again, I plan to try for dessert too







Me too! I've wanted to go to Chefs for awhile too, but it just never fit. I felt like it was too much heavy food to eat then walk around in the heat, so december seems perfect.

The Cobb salad and dessert trio were what I planned to get...but now we've added the SW party, so dessert is probably off the table. I never manage to make it to the lounge for that, even though I always say I will!!

I agree about Chefs seeming heavy! I'm really nervous about the weather this time...last December we had two insanely hot days, but the rest was manageable. I am hoping for mid-70s. I just don't want to sweat to death or freeze, so anything in the middle is good!! If it's too cold I'll never be able to deal with staying late for fireworks, and what's the point of NYE at WDW if you don't watch fireworks???

 

[Raeven]

The Cobb salad and dessert trio were what I planned to get...but now we've added the SW party, so dessert is probably off the table. I never manage to make it to the lounge for that, even though I always say I will!!

Same! Although I've talked to Josh about splitting the filet too Even though later that night we also have a dessert party. Because when we did the Fantasmic package we didn't get to pick the desserts, and I wasn't a fan of most of mine.

I agree about Chefs seeming heavy! I'm really nervous about the weather this time...last December we had two insanely hot days, but the rest was manageable. I am hoping for mid-70s. I just don't want to sweat to death or freeze, so anything in the middle is good!! If it's too cold I'll never be able to deal with staying late for fireworks, and what's the point of NYE at WDW if you don't watch fireworks???

Definitely that's why I'd rather do it when it's not 100 degrees out. We had a mix last year of some days in the 80's and some in the low 70's with night always being pants weather. We only had one really cold night and it was in the 50's so not that cold compared to home.

 

[amalone1013]

Ahh!! That would stress me out!!

Right! It worked out fine mostly, just couldn't get the same FP so they did a few different ones and did HM standby, no 7DMT. I just ran out of time to check in on them before we left, with all the wedding stuff to wrap up.

 

[xlsm]

Good morning!!

I feel a little like I've abandoned this PTR, but not much has happened with it for awhile!

There are a few updates though, and a couple of changes/additions!

For our first park day at DHS, I moved all of our FPs to times later in the afternoon and added the Star Wars Dessert Party

I am VERY excited about this dessert party, and was surprised to find openings!



We also changed around New Year's Day. Originally I wasn't sure of our exact plans for this day, but randomly made a Fast Pass for Flight of Passage. It was conflicting with our plans to have dinner at Citricos and watch Happily Ever After. So now we are planning on an early lunch at Sanaa (I dropped the reserved Boma breakfast. Now we're going to attempt to sleep in after a looooong NYE night at Epcot) and then go to Magic Kingdom.

Our Fast Passes are between 1 and 4pm for Pirates, Jingle Cruise, and Buzz. We have a 5:35 dinner at Citricos we don't want to miss out on. Happily Ever After is scheduled for 9pm, so we will probably eat and then go back to MK for the fireworks. I want to get as close as possible b/c of *spoiler alert if you're reading my TR* not getting a good view during October's trip.

Our last full day on 1/2 will still be at Animal Kingdom. We'll start the day with an early Boma breakfast and spend the whole day at AK until sunset to see Pandora in the semi-dark, before going back to AKL and our Jiko dinner, which I pushed back from 5:30 to 6:50.



We are still waiting on MIL to confirm that she's coming to stay with the dogs...she's avoiding phone calls



Because of that....are you ready??

WE STILL HAVE NOT BOOKED OUR FLIGHTS



I'm sure you can imagine my stress level on this is THROUGH THE ROOF.

That's all I have for you right now...wish me luck with flights, it's killing me not to book, but if we can't figure out someone to come stay with the dogs and make sure the kids are home in time on 1/3, all of this planning will be for nothing and we'll have to cancel our nights at Movies, all of our dining reservations, and lose the money we spent on the DVC point rental at AKL-Kidani. So...no big deal, right?? UGH!!

 

[MeghanEmily]

Because of that....are you ready??

WE STILL HAVE NOT BOOKED OUR FLIGHTS

ARRGGHH! This is so stressful!!

it's killing me not to book, but if we can't figure out someone to come stay with the dogs and make sure the kids are home in time on 1/3, all of this planning will be for nothing and we'll have to cancel our nights at Movies, all of our dining reservations, and lose the money we spent on the DVC point rental at AKL-Kidani. So...no big deal, right?? UGH!!

UGH is right! I really hope something works out for you...and SOON!

I think your Jan. 1st changes in plans are wise...but I'm sad we won't see you at AK this day. As long as everything works out and you're able to actually do your trip, I'll go back to the drawing board and see where else we might cross paths instead.

 

[amalone1013]

UGHHHHHHH. Hopefully it gets figured out ASAP! I would totally volunteer except I suspect we live far away from each other I love dogs! I feel for you though. We had lots of people not committing to things on our trip (even on the actual day), and DH's brother who gets married in April half a country away has not told us anything except the date of his wedding. Like, even if DH is going to be in the wedding or not. Not exactly the same, but ugh.

 

[missangelalexis]

Ugh how stressful! I hope MIL gets back to you soon so you can book flights!!

 

[Raeven]

I am VERY excited about this dessert party, and was surprised to find openings!

Yay I'm so glad you're going to do this!

I'm sure you can imagine my stress level on this is THROUGH THE ROOF.

That's all I have for you right now...wish me luck with flights, it's killing me not to book, but if we can't figure out someone to come stay with the dogs and make sure the kids are home in time on 1/3, all of this planning will be for nothing and we'll have to cancel our nights at Movies, all of our dining reservations, and lose the money we spent on the DVC point rental at AKL-Kidani. So...no big deal, right?? UGH!!

Ugh I hope you find out soon!

 

[ariane37]

For the first time ever, we bought a non-hopper ticket
It feels so stifling to me, but I know we can always add a hopper to his ticket when we're there if we need to.

Yup, this is from a post you did on Oct. 30th We didn't get hoppers for a trip back in 2014-first time in ages we didn't get them. It was a summer trip and my plan was park-relax at resort-return to same park. We did one day like that and added hoppers lol. However it was all 4 of us so you may manage without them!

ADR for Citricos dinner

I thought you cancelled this, then saw you're still eating there Don't cancel!! And ask to sit in Rony's section!!!!

We are still waiting on MIL to confirm that she's coming to stay with the dogs...she's avoiding phone calls

OMG If you still haven't heard, I'm crossing my fingers for you!

 

[xlsm]

Once again, I declare that I have not abandoned this PTR!!

Well, ok. Yes I kind of did.

Actually, the whole "will we, won't we" thing was stressing me out so much, I just didn't even want to think about it. I completely avoided the Disboards and obviously did not update this OR my October TR.

But...now I have real updates for you!!



And yes, the celebrating Andy means good news.

We don't have to cancel anything!!

The in-laws ARE coming to watch the dogs and make sure someone is home in case the kids come back early from their grandparents!

We have flights booked!!

We have an arrival night hotel!!

Our magic bands have shipped!!



Some details...

We are flying down on 12/28 from another tiny regional airport an hour south of here. This one serves TWO airlines with TWO terminals and not just one like the itty bitty airport mom and I flew out of in October. Flights from our town's airport were just too expensive or had awful times. We will arrive at MCO around 9:30pm, and we booked a room at the MCO Hyatt for the night.

So, we'll land, collect our luggage, check in at the hotel, and the next morning we'll take the Magical Express to All Star Movies for the first part of our stay.

After dropping off our stuff, we'll head to Hollywood Studios for a pretty full day.

Our Fast Passes:

12:30 - 1:30 - Star Tours
1:40 - 2:40 - Toy Story
3 - 4 - Tower of Terror

We have a dinner reservation at Brown Derby for 4:45 and Star Wars Dessert Party at 8:30pm.

Other things we hope to accomplish during the day:

All the Star Wars meet and greets (and any M&G we happen to stumble upon that has a non-scary wait time), Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, March of the First Order, and *maybe* RnR. The main priority will be our FPs and reservations, and checking out all of the holiday decorations. I'm so excited we're flying in on the 28th so we will be at DHS on the 29th to see Sunset Season's Greetings. If we didn't come that one day early, we would have scheduled DHS for another day or skipped it entirely.

I'm finally starting to get really, really excited about this trip!! And feeling like my planning game is super strong



More daily details posts coming up in the next few days!!

 

[missangelalexis]

Yay it's all official!! Your first park day sounds great!!

 

[amalone1013]

I'm so glad it all worked out!

 

[MeghanEmily]

And yes, the celebrating Andy means good news.

We don't have to cancel anything!!

The in-laws ARE coming to watch the dogs and make sure someone is home in case the kids come back early from their grandparents!

We have flights booked!!

We have an arrival night hotel!!

Our magic bands have shipped!!

I am so excited for you hearing this!! YAY! What a relief!

the next morning we'll take the Magical Express to All Star Movies for the first part of our stay.

Neat! We'll be just next door at All Star Sports for the second part of our trip, arriving 12/30.

We have a dinner reservation at Brown Derby for 4:45 and Star Wars Dessert Party at 8:30pm.

Ooh this looks promising for a quick potential meet! Nathan and I are thinking we'll try to hit the Brown Derby lounge for dinner this night after his Star Tours FP (4:55-5:55). And even if we don't, we're still planning to be at DHS this afternoon/evening. Crossing my fingers...

 

[coloredimage]

Yayy!!!!

(I came to the PTR section because I DID abandon my PTR so I want to start fresh and am so glad I saw this!)

 

[Raeven]

We don't have to cancel anything!!

The in-laws ARE coming to watch the dogs and make sure someone is home in case the kids come back early from their grandparents!

We have flights booked!!

We have an arrival night hotel!!

Our magic bands have shipped!!

Yay!

 

[xlsm]

Is Christmas over yet??

Just kidding...I don't want to rush anything!

My brother and his family came to visit this weekend and we had all kinds of fun. We checked out some Christmas lights and braved the cold...kind of a miracle that it was actually cold, but I was regretting not owning a coat! At least I had a sparkly scarf??



Don't let L's pushed up sleeves fool you - he's a nut. It was around 30 degrees! I know the combo of his North Face and hot cocoa was not warming him up enough to need pushed up sleeves.

X stayed home from school on Friday to "help" me get ready for their arrival that morning, so my 3 year old niece latched onto him and declared him to be her best friend.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/143888229@N08/

He enjoyed it at first but I think he was over it by the end of the weekend.

I also got a lot of snuggle time in with my brand new 7 week old nephew (who made his debut while I was on my October trip via unplanned early c-section...SIL was scheduled for a c-section on 10/31, but she developed pre-eclampsia)

But back to this upcoming trip which is...17 days away!

How is that possible??

I have nothing new for this trip. No cute new ears or shirts or anything. I haven't even had time to look! So if you see pics on social media or read the TR, you'll be seeing the same ol' Disney shirts from trips past. Our magic bands arrived though, and those are new...does that count??

I think I covered our first park day plans at DHS, so let's move on to New Year's Eve EVE, which we'll be spending at the Magic Kingdom. No way I'm missing those amazing NYE fireworks over the castle, and I"m grateful they're shown two nights in a row.

Since this is going to be a late night, I'm not sure how early we'll get to the park. Our first Fast Pass is for the Haunted Mansion from 12:20 - 1:20. We'll probably hit it around 12:30ish b/c we're following it up with lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern at 1:05. Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake here I come!!

Pretend there's an adorable and hilarious cake gif here...every one I try to upload is too large

Our next passes aren't until later in the afternoon:

4:45 - 5:45 at Splash Mountain
5:45 - 6:45 at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

I think I'm going to go look for earlier times b/c I'm developing a fear of chilly nights sliding down log flume and following it up with the wildest ride in the wilderness!

Other things on the agenda, in no particular order:

Philharmagic
People Mover
Monsters, Inc
Carousel of Progress
Riding the train
Country Bears

If a ride has a short line, we'll ride, otherwise it's a Fast Pass and fireworks focused day!

We will go to the Hub for a fireworks spot early, and I will continue to stalk the website for a fireworks dessert party for the late NYE Eve fireworks show.

So just this quick little update today, but will try to get back with more soon!!