Our 1st ever kid-free WDW trip PTR

[VandVsmama]

If your flight number/ID is different, please call Magical Express and update that info so they can get you on the right bus in time for your flight. Otherwise, you might miss your flight and have to stay at POP forever and ever.... just sayin'.

Thanks for the suggestion! I haven't actually made our Magical Express reservation yet!

 

[VandVsmama]

Good news! We almost have the WDW travel package paid in full as of today. One nice thing about this is that all of our lodging and tickets are paid for ahead of time. Usually when we go to Disneyland, we stay in an off site hotel, which involves paying the hotel upon arrival or at check out (policies vary based on the hotel). So this time around, it'll be nice not to have to think about that.

On top of it, our airfare is all paid for. So I don't have to hassle at all with that. This leaves just money for food and souvenirs.

 

[cyndiella]

Good news! We almost have the WDW travel package paid in full as of today. One nice thing about this is that all of our lodging and tickets are paid for ahead of time. Usually when we go to Disneyland, we stay in an off site hotel, which involves paying the hotel upon arrival or at check out (policies vary based on the hotel). So this time around, it'll be nice not to have to think about that.

On top of it, our airfare is all paid for. So I don't have to hassle at all with that. This leaves just money for food and souvenirs.

I always do this myself.. pay off everything before, even the park and fly at the airport. Gift cards for food so I don't have to have cash except to tip the ME drivers and the airport shuttle drivers. Then I can truly enjoy myself. I also paid a big chunk of my travel package this week. just a little left for my 'pif' due date in December. WooHoo..

 

[VandVsmama]

I always do this myself.. pay off everything before, even the park and fly at the airport. Gift cards for food so I don't have to have cash except to tip the ME drivers and the airport shuttle drivers. Then I can truly enjoy myself. I also paid a big chunk of my travel package this week. just a little left for my 'pif' due date in December. WooHoo..

It's nice not having it hanging over your head!

 

[VandVsmama]

It's been a long and frustrating week in the work department. I'm so glad that today is the end of my work week. At least tomorrow is Halloween! We will be handing out candy tomorrow evening in our driveway. My kids are going to help. ODD is going to be a jedi and YDD will be a banana. Both kids decided that they've reached the age where they don't want to trick or treat anymore.

Disneyland remains closed with no new news on when CA will let the large theme parks reopen. So I've still got 3 unusable Disneyland tickets...which expire at the end of January. Our 4th ticket is from Undercover Tourist. UT is giving us a refund at least.

I read yesterday about how WDW is changing up how ROTR boarding groups are handed out and the change is happening next week I think!


From what I've read, it looks like you'll be able to get a boarding group starting at 7:00 am Eastern time from wherever you are. They're still doing a 2nd boarding group distribution at 2:00 pm every day. But at least now with these changes, hopefully it will ease the transportation insanity that has been occurring trying to get into HS before 10:00 am. It's pretty nuts because at Pop Century, people are getting in line for the Skyliner at, like, 7:15 am.


There's no way my DH is going to want to wait in an hour long Skyliner line, so we were planning on doing a breakfast ADR at Boardwalk or Yacht Club on our 2 HS mornings. My other plan was to get an Uber/Lyft to the Speedway gas station right near Boardwalk and then we walk over to the HS entrance.

We just might still do that for 1 of our HS days. For the other HS day, we might sleep in a little bit and not worry about getting there right at rope drop (which, from what I've read, is ~9:15 am).

I need to upgrade my iPhone before this trip. I still have an iPhone 6! I'm still stuck in the dark ages.

In other family news, we've decided that ODD will not be going on the England & Ireland choir trip that her choir has planned for at the end of next school year. There will be plenty of other opportunities for her to go on other trips. And we highly doubt at this point if the UK will be open to US tourism by the end of May 2021. Europe and the UK are locking things down again as I type this. And currently, US travelers to the UK have to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in the UK. I could see them setting up some sort of 72-hr testing system like Hawaii just started a couple of weeks ago, but that system is fraught with logistical problems. And we're just not comfortable with the idea of our 14 yr old ODD being thousands of miles away possibly stuck in a London airport in no man's land not able to enter the country because of something like her COVID-19 test got lost by the testing company.

So instead, we are now planning a 2-week-long vacation. It'll be over YDD's birthday. The general idea is we'll rent a 1-way rental car and drive from AZ to Orlando, then spend several days at WDW and fly home to AZ. Some time this month, I think I'm going to get a WDW package set up with our Dreams Unlimited Travel agent so we can get the cheaper hotel room rates secured.

 

[VandVsmama]

Good news in the trip planning department! I added trip insurance to our January trip. One more payment to go for that trip! Woo hoo! I also got a quote today for our late May-early June trip, so I'll be paying our deposit for that later today.

I would really love for Disneyland to allow ticket holders to get refunds on tickets purchased directly from Disney. There's no end in sight for Disneyland being able to reopen any time soon. Reopening is all in a big political battle between the CA governor's office and the theme park operators. DL is going to be opening Buena Vista Street later this month for shopping & dining, but we are not interested in driving all the way to CA just to go shopping.

 

[VandVsmama]

I got an email and a phone call today from Southwest Airlines. They rearranged our flights back home on 1/28. No longer are we changing planes in Houston (DANG IT!). Instead, now we get to change planes in Chicago-Midway.

And a 45 minute layover.

Well, SON OF A BATMAN, I was trying to avoid airports with snow. Oh well. Good thing I'm taking the following day off of work, too. There'll probably be a good chance that we get stranded in the airport overnight.

 

[VandVsmama]

My ADR day is coming up! On Tuesday of next week! So far, I've decided on:

• Sun 1/24 - late lunch at The Wave at CR. Then after park closes, Whispering Canyon around 7 pm or Homecomin' at DS at 7:30 pm (we'd probably take monorail --> CR then bus from CR -->DS to get to Homecomin').
• Mon 1/25 - HS day - Oga's Cantina some time mid afternoon and Brown Derby for dinner.
• Tues 1/26 - Epcot - Biergarten for dinner
• Wed 1/27 - HS - no ADRs
• Thurs 1/28 - MK - Skipper Canteen at noon.

 

[VandVsmama]

WDW has announced that park hopping is returning! YAHOO! So we'll be able to use the park hopping part of our tickets after all! From the WDW announcement, it sounds like you first have to go to the park that you have a reservation/park pass for that day. Then starting at 2:00 pm, you can hop to another park as long as that other park has sufficient capacity to let you in.

I'm going to assume for a moment that we'll be able to check that on the app.

This now changes my ADR plans a little bit. So instead of doing a lot of dinner ADRs, I think we'll switch to mostly lunch time ones. This is what I'm thinking of:

• Sat 1/23 - no ADRs since our flight lands at 3:20 pm. Will do QS dinner at food booths in Epcot.
• Sun 1/24 - Get DH some theme park down time by having lunch around 1:00 pm at The Wave at CR. If Epcot's hours get extended so they're open until 8 or 9 pm that day, then we can hop to Epcot. Otherwise, I think we'll probably stay at MK all day on Sunday.
• Mon 1/25 - Start at HS. Docking Bay 7 for lunch. ADR at Oga's Cantina around 2:00 pm. Neither of us will want to ride ToT or Rockin Roller Coaster. And we're going to skip the Frozen Sing Along. Then hop to MK (preferable) or Epcot for the evening.
• Tues 1/26 - Epcot all day. TS for lunch at Biergarten probably in the 1:30 pm time frame. But if we're able to hop to Epcot on Sun and/or Mon, then we will probably be done with Epcot at this point....and would want more MK time instead.
• Wed 1/27 - Start at HS. Brown Derby for lunch around 1:00 pm. Then hop to AK.
• Thurs 1/28 - no park hopping. Check out day and departure day. TS for lunch at Skipper Canteen at MK.

 

[VandVsmama]

HOORAY! This morning, I got up just before 4:00 am local time (since we're a 2 hr time difference from Florida), logged onto the WDW site, and was able to get all of the ADRs I wanted! Here's what I reserved:

• Sunday 1/24 - The Wave for lunch at 1:00 pm - because DH is going to love the Contemporary Resort. He's also going to love escaping the theme park for a little respite. And because he doesn't know it yet, but he's probably going to love their bacon & eggs appetizer (which IS on their lunch menu now! I just checked the website)
• Sunday 1/24 - Whispering Canyon for dinner at 7:15 pm at Wilderness Lodge - because *I* want to see Wilderness Lodge and because they have all-you-can-eat meat platters that DH is going to love. And because we can take the boat there at the end of our MK day.
• Monday 1/25 - Oga's Cantina at 1:45 pm at HS - I made this ADR first. Honestly, I was surprised to see availability since it's so popular and they have reduced capacity because of social distancing. This is the one that DH is going to be the most excited about. All other meals this day will be QS.
• Tuesday 1/26 - Biergarten at 1:30 pm at Epcot - because all-you-can-eat German food, and there's a band that plays, and I know that DH will enjoy the experience here.
• Wednesday 1/27 - Brown Derby at 1:00 pm - there's a lot of interesting things on the menu here that I'd like to try!
• Thursday 1/28 - Skipper Canteen at 12:00 pm before we have to get on the Tragical Express back to the airport.

Except for the Whispering Canyon ADR, these are all lunch reservations. Did you notice that? I've got a reason for doing it this way. Because park hopping is starting up again in January! It seemed to me that it made the most sense to do a lunch ADR in or near the park that we'd be in first. And then if we decide to park hop and are able to hop to the park we want that day, then we'll just eat QS for dinner at park #2.

 

[VandVsmama]

Some other good news...I just submitted our last payment for our WDW trip! Now all we have left to pay for is food and souvenirs. I really love having all of this paid in full ahead of time.

 

[VandVsmama]

So...just now, DH said, "Maybe we shouldn't go on the trip in January." This picture pretty much sums up what I was thinking at that moment:


He's most worried about the airplane portion of the trip. I walked him back from the ledge, though, by reminding him that:

1. All of the planes have no been retrofitted with new HEPA air filters.
2. The planes all bring in fresh air and totally replace the cabin's air every 5 minutes.
3. If it'll make him feel more comfortable, I'll get us both N95 masks to wear just for the plane travel part of our trip.
4. The airlines also give out disinfecting wipes when you board the plane.
5. Plus I have travel packets of disinfecting wipes ready to pack in our carry on luggage.
6. We will wipe down the seats, all of our arm rests, the tray table, etc, etc.

In other trip news, United Airlines changed our flights to Orlando. Now instead of changing planes in Houston like I wanted to, we have to change planes in DENVER! Darn it. Nothing we can really do about it though.

 

[RanDIZ]

We stayed at

HOORAY! This morning, I got up just before 4:00 am local time (since we're a 2 hr time difference from Florida), logged onto the WDW site, and was able to get all of the ADRs I wanted! Here's what I reserved:

• Sunday 1/24 - The Wave for lunch at 1:00 pm - because DH is going to love the Contemporary Resort. He's also going to love escaping the theme park for a little respite. And because he doesn't know it yet, but he's probably going to love their bacon & eggs appetizer (which IS on their lunch menu now! I just checked the website)
• Sunday 1/24 - Whispering Canyon for dinner at 7:15 pm at Wilderness Lodge - because *I* want to see Wilderness Lodge and because they have all-you-can-eat meat platters that DH is going to love. And because we can take the boat there at the end of our MK day.
• Monday 1/25 - Oga's Cantina at 1:45 pm at HS - I made this ADR first. Honestly, I was surprised to see availability since it's so popular and they have reduced capacity because of social distancing. This is the one that DH is going to be the most excited about. All other meals this day will be QS.
• Tuesday 1/26 - Biergarten at 1:30 pm at Epcot - because all-you-can-eat German food, and there's a band that plays, and I know that DH will enjoy the experience here.
• Wednesday 1/27 - Brown Derby at 1:00 pm - there's a lot of interesting things on the menu here that I'd like to try!
• Thursday 1/28 - Skipper Canteen at 12:00 pm before we have to get on the Tragical Express back to the airport.

Except for the Whispering Canyon ADR, these are all lunch reservations. Did you notice that? I've got a reason for doing it this way. Because park hopping is starting up again in January! It seemed to me that it made the most sense to do a lunch ADR in or near the park that we'd be in first. And then if we decide to park hop and are able to hop to the park we want that day, then we'll just eat QS for dinner at park #2.

We stayed at CCV last weekend and did dinner at Whispering Canyon. It was one of the best meals I’ve had. Also the boat ride is easy and convenient. About 10 min from MK to CCV.

 

[VandVsmama]

We remain all systems go for our trip! Both United and Southwest Airlines moved around our flight schedules a few weeks ago. That was kind of annoying, but there's nothing we can really do about it. The Dis posted a great article that I read earlier today which has all of the photos and menus for the Epcot art & food festival, which will be going on when we're there. There are a LOT of things that I want to try!

WDW also extended the Epcot park hours for Saturday, 1/23. This is our arrival day. We don't have dinner ADRs for this day and were planning on eating at the festival food booths. It'll be nice to have an extra hour to enjoy that (closing at 8 pm instead of 7 pm)!

I've ordered our Magic Bands and they are somewhere in USPS-land on their way to our house.

Our Dreams Unlimited Travel Agent made our Magical Express reservation, but we have yet to receive anything in the mail or in email about it. We'll see how this goes!

Our ADRs right now are:

• Sunday (MK day) - The Wave for lunch and Whispering Canyon at Wilderness Lodge after park close.
• Monday (HS day) - Oga's Cantina mid-afternoon. Will probably have lunch at Docking Bay 7 and we'll do some other QS for dinner, too, I think.
• Tuesday (Epcot) - Biergarten for lunch at 1:00.
• Wednesday (HS) - Brown Derby at 12:45 for lunch.
• Thursday (MK, departure day) - Skipper Canteen at noon.

 

[Paulaparm]

Have a wonderful time! Can't wait to read all about it

 

[VandVsmama]

For some reason, I woke up super early this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep so I decided to go ahead and do the “practice come home” bit for a ROTR boarding pass.
I followed the recommendations on one of the ROTR sticky threads, which were to:

1. Turn off Location Services for the MDE app
2. Go to time.gov to monitor the official time
3. Five sec before 7:00 am Eastern time, click JOIN three times in a row very quickly, starting at the AT-AT picture on the main MDE screen. Don’t pay attention to whether other people in your party are checked off

When I did all that, I got the following on my screen. People smarter than me on the ROTR thread said that this means that we would have gotten a boarding group. Yay!

 

[VandVsmama]

Our ADRs right now are:

• Sunday (MK day) - The Wave for lunch and Whispering Canyon at Wilderness Lodge after park close.
• Monday (HS day) - Oga's Cantina mid-afternoon. Will probably have lunch at Docking Bay 7 and we'll do some other QS for dinner, too, I think.
• Tuesday (Epcot) - Biergarten for lunch at 1:00.
• Wednesday (HS) - Brown Derby at 12:45 for lunch.
• Thursday (MK, departure day) - Skipper Canteen at noon.

If the MK park hours get extended from closing at 7 pm to closing at 8 pm instead, I will probably cancel or reschedule the Whispering Canyon ADR.

 

[VandVsmama]

On a bit of a whim/gut instinct, I called Magical Express this afternoon because: (a) I haven't received anything yet in the mail from them; (b) nor have I received an email confirmation yet either; and (c) our trip is 2 weeks from tomorrow.

Well, it turns out that it's a good thing I did call! Our travel agent DID make a DME reservation for us for our departure and our arrival, but they didn't have the arrival flight information. AND they mailed the confirmation paperwork to the travel agent's address, not MY address. Oopsie!

Our Magic Bands are still in transit, sent via USPS. According to the USPS tracking info, it left Las Vegas today. That means the Magic Bands will probably arrive some time next week!

 

[VandVsmama]

I got an email this morning from Touring Plans announcing that WDW has changed their park hours for ALL of the days of our trip! It made me think of this...



Epcot WAS closing at 7 pm every day, but now it's closing at 8 pm instead. Still same opening time (11 am). MK WAS closing at 6 pm, but is now closing at 7 pm. HS still closes at 7 pm, but now opens at 9 am instead of 10 am. And AK changed from 9 am - 5 pm to 8 am - 6 pm.

Here's my current thoughts about all of that:

1. I'm glad that Epcot is open an hour later because we're going to Epcot on our arrival day. Our plane doesn't land until 3 pm.
2. The next day is a MK day. We have a lunch ADR at The Wave, but a dinner ADR at 7:15 pm at Whispering Canyon at Wilderness Lodge. I'm definitely going to cancel our Whispering Canyon ADR because I think we might want to stay at MK until closing. We'll play it by ear for dinner...we can eat somewhere in the park, or go to Geyser Point for a late dinner at Wilderness Lodge (since Geyser Point is QS and you don't need an ADR). DH is going to want to try their bison burger.
3. OR on that MK day, DH might decide that he wants to hop to Epcot for the last couple of hours and we could eat dinner there!
4. For our 2 HS days, we'll end up having to get up earlier than I had anticipated so we can be there for rope drop. If HS opens at 9:00 am, then they'll probably start letting people in at 8:15 am. Honestly, I think we will end up using Uber or Lyft to get to HS for rope drop...like get a Lyft to drop us off at the Speedway gas station and then we'll walk to the HS entrance.
5. Now I'm glad that almost all of our ADRs are lunch ones!

 

[VandVsmama]

A friend of mine at work leaves in 3 days for her family's week-long trip to WDW! The day that she flies home is our arrival day. So we've been comparing trip plans a lot these past few days.

I have now succeeded in driving my DH bananas by getting out my luggage and starting to pack for our trip. LOL! Here's what I've got packed so far:

• keto-ish-friendly snacks - like macadamia nuts, these cool cheese crisp 'chips', some Kind bars (for me for a grab & go breakfast some mornings).
• 2 small travel sized packs of antibacterial wipes
• masks
• my quart-sized liquids bag - full of hand sanitizer, hair gel, sunscreen, & toothpaste
• 2 travel-sized umbrellas
• 2 ponchos
• a couple of Star Wars t-shirts
• couple of other clothing items

And our Magic Bands arrived! Check it out!!


Exciting! Yes, we had to pay for these. $5 each discounted price when I ordered them through the MDE section of Disney World's website. No more free Magic Bands! Darn it.

DH is trying to stick to as low carb as possible on this trip, so I went on Allears.net's website to look at QS restaurant menus. This is so I know where in each park there are some decent lower carb food options for meals without us having to tromp around to look at every menu in person. Besides, they want you to use Mobile Order almost everywhere right now anyway. Here's the list I've got so far:

Magic Kingdom:

• Pinocchio's - antipasto salad
• Friar's Nook - hot dog (without the bun, but in the moment, DH will end up eating the bun)
• Pecos Bill's - Southwest chicken salad
• Sleepy Hollow - corn dogs. Ok, there's NOTHING low carb about corn dogs. But we are HUGE fans of the corn dogs at Disneyland from the Little Red Wagon on Main Street and DH is going to want a corn dog.
• Cosmic Ray's - greek salad with chicken, bacon cheeseburger (maybe we can ask them to wrap it in lettuce?)

Hollywood Studios:

• Backlot Express - Southwest chicken salad, bacon cheeseburger (w/o the bun)
• ABC Commissary - Mediterranean salad with chicken
• Ronto Roasters - turkey jerky, any of the wraps without eating the actual wrap part
• Rosie's All American Cafe - salad w/pulled pork
• Stuff I want to try at Woody's Lunchbox - tomato basil soup, BBQ brisket melt
• Stuff we want to try at Docking Bay 7 - pork ribs, pot roast

Epcot:

• Regal Eagle Smokehouse - pretty much any of the BBQ meats
• Les Halles - quiche florentine. I'm majorly going to oink on the desserts there.
• Spice Road Table - spicy shrimp, grilled lamb kefta, hummus fries, fried calamari, crispy cauliflower

I don't know if we'll end up at AK so I haven't looked at those menus. We'll play that by ear. If we do go, it'll be to park hop and I doubt we'd eat dinner there.