I was just doing some reading on GKTW and the man behind it...I knew I read about it long ago so I needed a refresher. She is going to have such a wonderful time...from your itinerary at Disney and GKTW there is going to be so much to do and see. 
We will def schedule a tuck-in one night, and keep the US/IOA day the way it is.I would definitely see Festival of the Lion King - it's my favorite show at Disney!!
I will PM you the crowd schedules...That may help with this...
hopefully when things quiet down you'll feel better.Initially I was disappointed that we weren't going at the same time, but now that I see your schedule I'm glad you're going first! You can be the lab rat.Seriously though, I think you're going to be able to provide some great tips. It looks good to me, I would just double check the crowd schedules to see if that entices you to switch anything.
Gee, thanks! I think I actually did pretty well with the crowds, hooray! It helped knowing the EMH hours though. I'm starting to wonder if I've overbooked us though.. I'm going to wait and see how she does, but I may drop US/IOA and use it as a rest day if she seems to be getting too worn out. We're so lucky to be even going, it's hard for me to keep that in mind sometimes when I want to try to cram everything in. 
Tracy
It is very amazing what GKTW does for the families. That's another reason I'm keeping it in the back of my mind that we can drop US/IOA, or even just do a half day at one or the other of them. She may well just want to spend a day at the village hanging out and taking advantage of everything that's there, and if we're going to drop something, that would be the top of my list considering everything we're doing at Disney that I am not willing to drop.
Your plan sounds great!
Everything sounds so wonderful! You really did a great job planning.
I wouldn't change the IOA/Epcot days. And as you noticed with DHS being on the busier side of you combined day, I wouldn't really worry about it, since it IS because of Fantasmic.
I think you have Park Hoppers..... If that is true, once you guys spend some time at DHS and if you decide it is too busy or you are finished, you can always head back to one of the other parks
Here's the plan, Stan!
I love giving Piper a hard time..we're very fond of rhyming games, hence the title of this update! We'll be getting in the jeep, and I'll say something like "get right in, Flynn"..and I get "Mooooooom..my name's not Flynn" and we both giggle like crazy! So without further ado, this is the itinerary I've come up with so far, with Piper chiming in on the dining decisions.
Tues Mar 2nd- This is arrival day for us, our flight doesn't get into Orlando until 4:17 pm, and I'm figuring 30-40 min to get to GKTW. We'll spend the evening checking out the village, having dinner, and I'll do orientation at some point, probably during the evening activity, which on Tues nights is Family Fun Night. My understanding is that it's themed kind of like the old show "Double Dare". At some point I'll have to make a Wal-Mart run since Gram isn't on the rental car. We'll try to get to bed early to get ready for...
Wed Mar 3rd- Magic Kingdom! Breakfast at the village, and try to make rope drop at 9am! Piper decided she does NOT want to meet the Stepsisters at Park Fare, and that she'll see plenty of Mickey without eating at Chef Mickeys, so we'll do CS at some point, prob for dinner (Cosmic Rays or CHH). We may pack a lunch to bring with us. I know we want to see the parades at 3 and 7 (Spectro) and Wishes at 8. Penny pressing and pin trading galore! Tonight is Village Idol at the Village, so if we don't make it back in time, it's not really a big problem. I'm kind of on the fence..originally I had planned on going back to the Village at lunchtime for lunch and a nap before heading back to the MK, but that would prob eat about 3-4 hrs with travel time included, and I'm not sure that I want to do that. Some of it will prob depend on how Piper is holding out, and whether or not she's on O2, and whether we end up using a stroller or wheelchair for part of the day. There's also a lounge for wish families that we could always hit up for a rest time. I need to get a piccie of it anyway for another wish mom whose flash drive died..she lost a ton of piccies, just reading about it made me nauseous. When we get back to the village, we'll prob grab a snack, do meds, and hit the hay, with her meds taking 60-90 min, we will prob be getting up by 6:30-7:00am daily to get going at a decent hour. Again, this will depend on how she's doing though, I'm not going to push her on vacation!
Thur Mar 4th- Epcot! Breakfast at the village and character greetings with the Disney characters, hooray! We'll spend the morning doing Epcot, then move on to World Showcase when it's time for our ADR @ Akershus! Lunch with the Princesses! After lunch we'll tour the different countries, probably doing a passport, and possibly doing a KimPossible mission. I also want all three of us to do "Pick a Pearl". I'm thinking we'll hit the road around 5:00 or so as tonight is the village Winter Wonderland night!! Santa, elves, penguins, parades, and presents, every child's dream come true! This means we will be skipping Illuminations, but we're okay with that.
Fri Mar 5th- US/IOA! Breakfast at the village and character greetings with Universal characters..(I have no idea who might show up at this, but I'm sure Piper will enjoy it!). We have very few "must-dos" at US/IOA..I'm hoping she'll get to meet Scooby and the Gang at some point, and have lunch planned at Circus McGirkus. We're also hoping the soft opening of Harry Potter will have taken place by then so we can check out the Wizarding World as we're both huge fans of the books. I'm planning on very casual touring here, no rushing, and when we're ready to go, we'll go. The Pirates and Princesses party at the village is tonight at 7:30, my understanding is that it's more geared for the younger set, but we'll at least check it out.
Sat Mar 6th- SeaWorld! Breakfast at the village and horseback riding! We'll head for SeaWorld after the horseback riding, I'm planning this to be another laid-back touring kind of day, focusing more on the animals than the rides. Piper looooves penguins, so when we get there I'm going to ask about her possibly getting some one-on-one time with one. Wish families also get free trays to feed a dolphin, the rays, etc. We definitely want to see Believe and the show with the walruses (and maybe sea lions? I can't remember). We'll also hit a CS for a late lunch. I'm thinking we'll be heading out of here by 5, but it's flexible. Tonight is Mayor Clayton's birthday party at the village at 7:45. This will give us some time to have dinner, relax, maybe do some other activities at the village before the birthday party!
Sun Mar 7th- AK/DHS! Breakfast at the village and off to AK, hopefully for rope drop, which I've heard is cute, but if we don't make it, that's okay too. I'm not listing particular rides because I'm saving them for another update, but I will say we want to see Finding Nemo, and possibly Festival of the Lion King. We have an ADR at Rainforest Cafe for lunch, then depending on what Piper wants to do, we'll either tour here some more, or head to DHS. Fantasmic is at 7:30, we'll probably do a heavy snack at some point, then order pizza when we get back to the village...they'll deliver until 10:30pm..woohoo! Tonight is the Village Life-Sized Candyland game. I need to discuss it with Piper, but I think she'll be willing to skip it for Fantasmic, otherwise we're ermm..a not so pretty word.
Mon Mar 8th- Departure day..yuck, I don't even like writing about this one. On the upside..our flight doesn't leave until 5:15..woohooo! We'll prob spend until 11 or so at the village, the Disney characters will be out and about doing character greetings, and I'm sure there will be other things there Piper wants to spend more time doing. When we leave I'd like to hit DTD and maybe one of the Disney outlets on Intl Dr. Depending on how we did with the budget we'll either eat lunch before we leave the village (free..) or hit either the Giant McDonald's or someplace at DTD. We'll need to be at the airport by 2:30 or so to return the rental car, check-in, etc.
Okay, looking over this again, I'm pondering switching our Epcot and US/IOA days. I think I'd rather have the extra time at Epcot, and that way we could see Illuminations and have more time at the World Showcase. Would need to see if I could switch our Akershus reservation though..maybe even switch it to dinner and eat a good breakfast at GKTW, do snackie lunch at CS, then the dinner at Akershus. The thing is though, I planned our days to avoid EMHs..and Epcot has them the 5th. Also this would only give us until 5pm at US/IOA and I know there are things Piper wants to see in both parks. Any opinions? For that matter I'd be open to any opinions on any of this at all..lol. I know this was a "light" crowd week, but have no idea what it was day-by-day. A very generous Dis'er is sending us a Passporter though, and I think I can look up daily crowd schedules with that?
It was my only memory of our trip when I was younger. For some reason we have no pictures either
And it was also the most memorable moment for us when we went in 08 as Goofy remembered Ty from earlier in the day and came right up to him and said "hi". This lady that I had talked to while we were sitting there waiting for it to start busted out bawling right there lol She had me crying. And of course NO pics of that either lol.Your PTR moves quickly! We're in the same boat with our long MK day. Part of me thinks that Ali will need to go back and take a nap in order to make it through Wishes, but the idea of driving back and forth bums me out. Are you talking about the Passporter book? I ended up buying one, but I don't see in there where crowds are rated.
I hope that Piper is feeling well and that you are rested from the holidays.
Me too
we used the gas logs at my moms house to stay semi warm--but the whole thing was a disaster. Yesterday was another late start day at school, today was a snow day for her and tomorrow probably will be too. ugh. GenevaClaire doesn't have too much of that, lol.the plan looks great and if you want the crowd calendar it's from the unofficial guide, just go to touringplans (dot) com and there is a link to the crowd calendar on the left-It shows some dates, but then if you want to see long range dates then you have to buy a membership (it's discounted if you bought the unofficial guide to disney guide books) if you need to know certain dates let me know my membership is still good (i think, but if not I'm buying it again for our trip so let me know)
Miss Maroo helped us out with that, wonderful woman that she is!I actually did pretty well without knowing the crowd calendar, there's only one day where the crowds are bad where we're going to be, and I figured it would be crowded..it's Fantasmic night, and there are only 2 while we're there right now, so both will prob be high crowd levels!
are you sick of cold weather and snow yet?? the big one we had took us down for 5 days of no power, no water, no phone, no cable
I am so sick of it I cannot even tell you! Piper is back on O2 and IVs..I'm just ready for spring, and I know she is too!
I loved the videos and pics from Christmas--she is such a cutie. I can't believe how careful she opened the last one, lots of patience
I have to tell you, when I finally got to watch the video with sound..I thought I sounded like a harpy! LOL..and I wonder where Piper gets the urge to talk so much!!
I was also soooo excited to find out that you are in the big give! I'm not a sewer, pixie dust is more my style and you'll be my first big give!! How cool!
I know Piper is getting super excited!
Thank you for signing up for our give!
Once the passporter comes in, I'll read that, and I know we'll use it a ton while we're there. Other than that though, poke me, I'm done! Normally I am a very fly by the seat of my pants type of girl. My family thinks it is crazily wonderful how much planning I've been doing for this trip, because none of them would expect me to be so..ermm..on top of it. I'm normally organized about Piper's meds and health needs, and that's it. I even tried to do a spreadsheet of our schedule...I gave up on that about 30 minutes in..lol. The rest of my posts will be devoted to Big Give, top ten lists, Piper updates, and fun things like that which require minimal brain drain on my part! Woohoo..party time! 
I'm so excited that we know so many of the people getting involved in our Give! I wish all of you involved could be here to see Piper opening her packages. I think I may have to get out the videocamera again since that's the next best thing! I'll just keep it focused on her so you all don't see me crying!
