Out of the Fire, Into the Frying Pan

[Stinkerbell's Mommy]

Forgive me, this may not be the first time I’ve been to “The World” but it’s the first time I’m attempting to write a planning journal. This trip has been in the works since January but I’ve been too busy planning to actually sit down and write about it. I made my final (YAY!) reservation yesterday so now I have nothing left to do!

Cast of Characters:
Me – 42 – Stinkerbell’s Mommy. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been to WDW. First trip was a family trip with my parents and two sisters when I was 14. Between then and now I’ve probably been a dozen times. Last trip was in December 2009
DH – 40 – Stinkerbell’s Daddy – third trip to WDW. We went twice as a family in 2009. Once in January when Bug was almost 2 with my mom, sister, BIL and nephew. We went again, just the three of us, in December when Bug was almost 3.
DD6 – Stinkerbell herself…also knows as bugs, bugly wug, the wee one and beast . This will be her third trip to WDW, see above.
Auntie J and her boyfriend M – Great friend of the family who is joining us on our adventure. This will be J’s first trip to WDW.

We will be arriving on 8/31 from Arizona and heading back home on 9/9. We are staying in a Royal Room at Port Orleans. Our friends are also booked at POR in a king room. We have the dining plan for part of our trip. Unfortunately this will require us to check in and check out and check in again to accommodate the package part of the trip. Hopefully this works out and we don’t have to change rooms. But, we’ll be in WDW so I won’t complain.

Current Itinerary:

8/31 – Arrive around 4:30. We’ll pick up our rental car and head to the resort. Trying to decide if we will stop at grocery shop on our way to the hotel since we have no other plans or if I will use Garden Grocer again this trip. We used them for our 12/2009 trip when we stayed as ASMu in a family suite and they were great. We may just stop at Wal-Mart though. I guess I still do have some decisions to make

9/1 – Hotel/DTD – Going to take advantage of the beautiful resort We’ll go fishing, swim, check out the grounds and generally relax and enjoy our surroundings.

9/2 – Magic Kingdom – We have a surprise ADR at CRT at 8:10am. Figure we’ll tour Fantasyland in the morning. Lunch at LTT 12:55 with our friends and then back to the hotel for a rest for a few hours before heading back to MK. We’ll grab a light dinner and tour Tomorrowland and Main Street until we all head over for our reservation for the Wishes Dessert Party.

9/3 – Animal Kingdom – Planning on hitting rope drop for this one since it’s a short day. I don’t have a touring plan for this one yet, having some trouble deciding what the priorities are. Figure we’ll do Camp Minnie Mickey and the Lion King show in the morning. Grab some rides in Africa and Asia until lunch (thinking Restaurantosaurus for lunch but that could change) and then everything else after lunch.

9/4 – Epcot – We have an 8:05 ADR at Akershus but may cancel this since we got the CRT breakfast. Right now we have way more sit down meals than credits but may just pay some out of pocket and keep it since the wee one loves princesses. We’ll tour a bit until lunch. We’ll probably head back to the resort for lunch and some swimming before heading back for our 4:30 ADR at Le Cellier. Tour World Showcase until heading to the Yacht Club for our Illuminations Cruise

9/5 – DHS – I have a pretty basic plan put together. The wee one is in a transition phase between loving Disney Jr and wanting no part of it. We’ll see how she feels when we get there. We have a 3:30 reservation at Brown Derby with our friends that includes Fantasmic! So I haven’t decided if we’ll do rope drop for this one since it will be a later evening. More decisions to make. We may just play it by ear.

9/6 – MK – day 2 of MK. The park is closing early (7pm) due to Night of Joy. We are planning hitting up Adventureland, Frontierland and Liberty Square. Our entire party has fastpasses for lunch at BOG due to a scheduling snafu by Disney. We had dinner ADRs but they decided to close the restaurant during NoJ so they cancelled us and offered us the fast passes to make up for it. I’m no dummy so I took them! We’ll try to get to anything in Fantasyland that we’d like to do again if time permits.

9/7 – Epcot – day 2 of Epcot. We have a lunch reservation that includes our friends at Coral Reef and a dinner reservation for just us at Tutto Italia. We may do a mid day break. At some point we are going to “candy around the world” for the wee one. She wants to try something from every country. She also wants to do a couple of the Agent P missions.

9/8 – Our final day in WDW  Right now we are planning a hotel day but we may decide to head back to one park, probably MK, to catch anything we missed along the way.

That’s our trip in a nutshell. I’ve spent months planning and obsessing. I have a spreadsheet and a binder. I’ve made and cancelled reservations over and over again. I’ve driven my husband and my travel agent crazy in the process. I’ve learned two things 1) I will never use a TA again. Not having complete control is making me nuts and 2) planning is at least half of the fun of going to Disney, at least for me, and I will probably abandon half my plans the minute we enter the park and I just decide to absorb and enjoy my surroundings.

My title? We live in Phoenix, AZ. In September it is still HOT, it is pretty much ALWAYS hot here. In September Orlando is also HOT, but also HUMID. Hopefully we will survive