Planning a most unconventional first trip - February 2019 (Updated 12/20)

[cadien]

Aargh! I'd managed to accept that we wouldn't have time to visit Disney Springs and then this gets posted: http://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories...1-5-for-jaleo-opening-soon-at-disney-springs/

Our favorite chef! And we're coming to the parks straight from a Disney cruise from Puerto Rico, and of course he was a huge part of the recovery.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Aargh! I'd managed to accept that we wouldn't have time to visit Disney Springs and then this gets posted: http://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories...1-5-for-jaleo-opening-soon-at-disney-springs/

Our favorite chef! And we're coming to the parks straight from a Disney cruise from Puerto Rico, and of course he was a huge part of the recovery.

That's a tough one. Your trip is just so short, going to DS would represent a big chunk of your available time.

 

[cadien]

Well I just discovered something exciting! There's a new behind the scenes tour at Animal Kingdom. With rhinos! And the minimum age is 4! For some reason although DS loves animals overall, he had no interest in the Caring for Giants elephant tour. Elephants just don't grab him. But he loves rhinos.

Although I guess that's another reason to try to switch our too-short Animal Kingdom day with our Epcot Future World Day. All those ADRs. Ugh. Really, it isn't the ADR's that are a problem so much as the Pirate & Pals cruise, since that's a pay ahead. Maybe I'll just do everything else and then call them to see whether I can just move the day on that one without racking up a second credit card charge.

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/b...sday-get-up-close-with-rhinos-starting-nov-1/

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Well I just discovered something exciting! There's a new behind the scenes tour at Animal Kingdom. With rhinos! And the minimum age is 4! For some reason although DS loves animals overall, he had no interest in the Caring for Giants elephant tour. Elephants just don't grab him. But he loves rhinos.

Although I guess that's another reason to try to switch our too-short Animal Kingdom day with our Epcot Future World Day. All those ADRs. Ugh. Really, it isn't the ADR's that are a problem so much as the Pirate & Pals cruise, since that's a pay ahead. Maybe I'll just do everything else and then call them to see whether I can just move the day on that one without racking up a second credit card charge.

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/b...sday-get-up-close-with-rhinos-starting-nov-1/

Looks really cool! It looks like you're putting lots of fun extras into your trip. I keep looking at them, but then I multiply the cost by the 5 of us and end up knocking them back off of the list.

 

[cadien]

But wait! There's more!

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/b...s-coming-to-walt-disney-world-resort-in-2019/

Unsurprisingly, the Festival of the Arts is now official and will be running during our trip.

11. Celebrate the 25th anniversary of Walt Disney Pictures’ “The Lion King” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom along with Timon and Rafiki in the “Hakuna Matata Time Dance Party” on Discovery Island. Let your inner animal roam free on the dance floor in this raucous party!

12. Also at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, have fun posing in front of special three-dimensional photo opportunities re-creating scenes from the animated classic.

This could obviously be fun, if it is already rolled out. Although I wonder whether they'll still have the Dino Bash dance party. Are multiple dance parties in one park a thing?

 

[dcassetta]

Day 2 - Friday - Epcot - Future World

First we have 7:30 reservations for the breakfast buffet at Boma.

Order set by Touring Plans:

Spaceship Earth

Meet Baymax

Living with the Land

Journey Into Imagination with Figment
- This was a lower priority but I added it in when we seemed to have plenty of time

JAMMitors
- More drumming!

Mission Space: Green

Advanced Training Lab

Club Cool for exotic soda flavors
-- I may disagree with Touring Plans and put this after Figment instead.

Coral Reef Restaurant -- 1:00 ADR
-- This one has a pretty mixed reputation but of all kinds of animals, DS has always been particularly interested in the underwater ones. Octonauts was a big obsession for a good two years. So this is the restaurant we picked more for him than for us.

The Seas with Nemo and Friends/Turtle Talk with Crush/Main Tank and Exhibits


And that only takes us to about 3:30. I'm leaving the rest of the day open for now for the Arts Festival. And maybe a side trip to Ample Hills Creamery. It sounds like this is where we'll be closest to it.

We have 7:00 dinner reservations at Sanaa. And hopefully we can then check out the animals with the night vision goggles before conking out. We all go to bed pretty early even on vacation.


DS has never had any interest in cars. Or Cars, although he's seen them all. And DH doesn't care about them either. So no Test Track for us. And DS has recently developed a fear of heights and is quite firm about bypassing Soarin.

Because you mentioned night vision goggles - you might like this tour - https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/animal-kingdom/night-safari/

It's only an hour and leaves from the Sanaa check in desk. We really enjoyed this and seeing the animals at night was so cool.

 

[cadien]

Because you mentioned night vision goggles - you might like this tour - https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/animal-kingdom/night-safari/

It's only an hour and leaves from the Sanaa check in desk. We really enjoyed this and seeing the animals at night was so cool.

That's one of the tours we would LOVE but DS will be 7 and the minimum age is 8. *shakes fist*

 

[cadien]

Well I'm officially going to Disneybound (one word or two?) one day, so I'm excited about that. Going on a Disney cruise this spring with two different costume days apparently made an impression.

As I've mentioned, one of the things we're most excited about is meeting Launchpad and Scrooge in Animal Kingdom. My son already has a Team Louie shirt to wear for the character meet photos, so I started by thinking about getting myself a Team Webbie one. (We are not entirely amused that our son's favorite nephew is the bad influence one, but hey.) But then I realized that DuckTales has a character that works with both my age and physical build. And is pretty cool besides in the reboot.

I wear glasses.
I already own a cardigan that color.
I already own a tee the color of the blouse.
I already own grey shorts.
Buying a turquoise pendant is easy.

For a while I was thinking a fanny pack would be the obvious stand-in for the apron. And useful besides. But I just can't, even if they're back in style. Besides, if you were around the first time something was fashionable, you're not supposed to wear it the second time, right? I think that's the rule. Anyway, I was looking for alternatives online and fortunately found one. I was being too literal.

I have almost that exact purse. At least in that it's white or off-white and has a tassle. So ta-da!

But now of course I'm tempted to think of outfits for the other two days.

 

[cadien]

Okay, I feel like talking about food because that's what I put so much of my planning thoughts into.

Animal Kingdom.

I considered Tusker House and Tiffins pretty closely because of the ROL package. And they're popular. But DH really dislikes buffets, so I try to limit those. And none of us felt a strong need for meeting the characters in safari outfits, although they're very cute. So no TH. And Tiffins just didn't grab me as much as Yak & Yeti. We're very adventurous eaters. It's not a weird menu at all. In fact I was expecting something more exotic. If we weren't staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge and eating at both Sanaa and Boma, it would be more compelling.

DH has a real love for fast casual Asian, for lack of a better term. Panda Express was his fast food of choice in high school and now we don't have one so it's become a sentimental thing. And he loves P.F. Changs too, which we also don't have, so Yak & Yeti it will be. The theming sounds really great. I'm looking forward to looking around.

Definitely the ahi tuna nachos. I'll probably struggle until the end to choose between the miso salmon (Miso glazed Atlantic salmon, coconut-ginger rice, baby bok choy and shiitake mushroom stir-fry) and the duck (Roasted half ducking, plum BBQ sauce, jasmine rice, stir-fried vegetables). At least I probably won't have to work the Korean ribs into the decision process because DH is likely to order those and we share. How are the garlic noodles? They sound like a must, even OOP. And thank goodness there are three of us, because there are those fried won tons, the mango pie, and I really love pineapple upside down cake. I like that they have sparkling sake because I haven't had a chance to try that. the Pink Himalayan (Tanqueray Gin, Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice, Passion Fruit and Lemon Grass Flavors, Salt Rim) sounds great too.

Anyway, that will be lunch. We try to make that our larger meal when on vacation. Especially since we tend to collapse into bed right after dinner regardless. And we'll be in the Asia section at that time of day. We want to check out Pandora at night, with the bio-luminescence, so it made more sense to make Satu'li Canteen dinner than lunch. And that was the other place in AK that seemed like the mustest-try. The BBQ place is popular, but the first way I narrow down restaurant choices is with things we can't get at home. So that also means no Italian or Mexican or pizza on this trip.

I did think about the Rivers of Light dessert party of course but decided on the Pirates & Pals Fireworks Voyage instead. But now that we're rearranging our days, I may need to look at that again. Also it means maybe I can try that spinach and goat cheese breakfast burrito at Kusafiri after all.

According to my spreadsheet, other things to try if time and appetite permit are the warm Malva spice cake at Harambe Market, the chocolate bourbon milkshake at Trilobites (I can really do without the bacon), and the Himalayan Ghost at Thirsty River (Snow Leopard Vodka, Guava and odwalla® Lemonade). The Nomad Lounge has a handful of great sounding cocktails and the photos really make it look like a beautiful place to rest, but we'll just have to see how quickly the day goes. And whether it's hot out. February is pretty hard to predict.

I'm guessing at Satuli we'll get a combo beef-chicken bowl and a fish bowl in order to try as many things as possible. And sample the boy's cheeseburger pods of course. It's too bad they don't seem to have that Kungaloosh Spiced Excursion Ale there. It would be a good place to try it. Instead of dessert here, we'll definitely move on to Pongu Pongu for the lumpia instead. Although that probably will waste a dessert credit on the meal plan. Undecided on the Night Blossom.

 

[earfulofmagic]

But now of course I'm tempted to think of outfits for the other two days.

Ah, the danger of Disneybounding! So much fun. Love the purse as a stand-in for the apron.

 

[SaraSpringsIsHome]

Your plans sound great so far!

Resort: Jambo House, Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Parks: Two days at Epcot, one at Animal Kingdom.

Staying at AKL Jambo and 3 park days. Sounds so familiar!

The icing on the cake for DH, who was the most disinterested in WDW of us, was the opening of Donald's Dino Bash. With the new opportunity to meet Launchpad and Scrooge

Scrooge McDuck is one of DH's favorite characters. We waited almost an hour a couple of years ago to meet him at the Christmas Party- it was a Must-Do for him! (Donald's Dino Bash-- remember this self!)

We're definitely decorating our Magic Bands.

SO adorable! I must look in to this...

Unsurprisingly, the Festival of the Arts is now official and will be running during our trip.

Terribly jealous we'll be missing this. I'd love to see some of the performances in Epcot.

 

[cadien]

Somehow despite all my research, I only just now discovered there will be Disney After Hours the first night of our visit. Although we started out just fine with skipping Magic Kingdom altogether, there are many ways this is a good idea. It's the time of year that the parks close around 8 or 9, so those extra hours would be really nice. We're only there three days. We aren't otherwise seeing MK and it won't take time away from the higher-priority parks. DH and DS can get their amusement park ride fix, which really was going to be underplayed on this trip.

I haven't gotten around to trying to rearrange our days and ADRs. I'll need to seriously look at what this would mean. Especially for the next morning.

 

[taaren]

A little more on our travel background.

DH and I are both from the west coast. DH is from the L.A. area. So Disney = Anaheim to us. Although we still live west of the Mississippi, we're now east of the Rockies, and apparently that's all it takes for Disney to be shorthand for Orlando instead. That's been a big adjustment for us. And as a 5th generation Californian, DH has a certain amount of snobbery about the one true park. So that's one reason we're doing the two parks that are most unique to Orlando. Also, we regularly visit family in Southern California so we have opportunities to experience the Magic Kingdom (and a decent amount of Hollywood Studios) there.

All that said, we're not really a Disney family. And we've avoided the whole princess thing with only having a son. What we are and always have been, however, is a Marvel family and a Star Wars family. (DH and I actually met at San Diego Comic Con.) So that's what sucked us in. And then I discovered pin trading, which I enjoy all out of proportion to how I feel about most of the films themselves. The icing on the cake for DH, who was the most disinterested in WDW of us, was the opening of Donald's Dino Bash. With the new opportunity to meet Launchpad and Scrooge. He was all about Disney Afternoons as a kid, and has shared all the tapes (and then DVDs) with our son, so that made his attitude do a 180.

And then I stumbled across an article in the NYT about how Puerto Rico is really hurting for tourist dollars right now. And I've always wanted to see Old San Juan. And the bioluminescent bays. And the food! And, well, it's the least we can do for Lin Manuel Miranda. (Yes, we've seen Hamilton. Yes, it really was all that.) So some poking around and I find a Disney cruise that starts in San Juan, meaning we can fly in a couple days early. (I get very little leave so we ever can't do things 'properly.') DH gave it a big thumbs up and we had our travel agent change the reservations. For the DCL people, it's 4 nights on the Wonder. Short but then we have the parks. Stops in St. Thomas and Castaway Cay. We really loved Castaway Cay. Even me, the total non beach person.

Zomg, your family is a lot like mine, we're also West Coasters, and 2 days in Epcot is definitely what I would have recommended. We're DVC so we stay Beach Club and kind of ignore MK and just do mostly Epcot with a little HS thrown in (my DS has been in love with the Aerosmith coaster since he was tall enough to ride it).
If you have a lot of time its fun to see the slight differences in MK vs DL, but we could do a week in Epcot and not get tired of all the different foods and just stuff to see. Keep in mind if you do the Extra Magic Hour in the evening at MK your family might be exhausted the next morning. We've done the one park in the morning/one in the evening a lot, with naps/pool time in between, so if you pace yourself it'll work out.
My friend and I spent weeks planning how to get Hamilton tickets when it came to LA, got a special credit card so we could try for the pre-release (because we had previously failed at getting any on release day for SF), we both spent the morning they were pre-released on our work computers for hours our coworkers thought we were crazy. It was worth it when we got to go 9 months later.
The fireworks cruises are amazing, our favorite was Illuminations because its so different from what happens in DLR. There are some threads on renting a pontoon boat privately and sharing it with other DISsers to keep the price reasonable, we did it twice and it was great, although I've heard wonderful things about Pirates and Pals as well.

It sounds like you have a fabulous trip to the Orlando parks planned, you're going to have a blast!

 

[cadien]

We've officially booked the DAH for Magic Kingdom on Thursday, which is arrival day. I then cancelled our Pirates & Pals Fireworks Cruise for that night, which helps balance out the cost. So it will be everyone's first Magic Kingdom visit. And DS's first time seeing fireworks unless you count the ones on Disney Cruise Line, which I really don't because they're about 2 minutes long.

We already had Boma brunch reservations for the next morning. I bumped it up about half an hour but that's as far as I was willing to go because I don't want to lose park time. And we do pretty well with getting up when we need to. We live somewhere that you almost always have to fly out at 5am.

The sad thing is we have to cancel Sanaa and I can't move it to another day. No bread service! But there's just no evening that it makes sense to return to the resort that early.

 

[cadien]

There is also a brand new twist. They just added DAH for Hollywood Studios, including our Saturday. And DH is really interested in that because his favorite ride is Indiana Jones. So if that ride turns out to be included, we may end up doing that also. And I just won't think about the price. He clearly no longer is.

 

[Jen W]

So neither my spreadsheets nor my Touring Plans account is quite adequate anymore for keeping track of everything I want to do on this trip and why. And I have what seems to be a very typical husband in that he does not want to discuss the details, let alone repeatedly. So here I am!

Who

Myself, husband, and 7-year old DS, who will still be 7 in February.

What

Three nights at WDW. Yes, just three. (Breathe.) For our first-ever visit. I told you it was unconventional.

When

February 7-10, 2019. Supposedly a great time. No cheer or dance competitions. No races. Not a holiday weekend. And probably the Arts Festival!

Where

Resort: Jambo House, Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Parks: Two days at Epcot, one at Animal Kingdom. (Breathe!)

Why

We're taking our second Disney Cruise. The first was April 2018, a Marvel Day at Sea. We had a great time and booked another It lets us off in Port Canaveral on a Thursday morning so it just made sense to stay until Sunday and try out WDW. It makes much more sense to do a cruise after a parks visit, relaxation-wise, but timing-wise that isn't an option.

How

Read on....

I’m pretty sure the UCA Cheer and Dance Competition is Feb 8-10.

 

[cadien]

I'm starting to freak out about this a little. Because this trip is sort of a continuation of our trip this April, I accidentally keep thinking it will also be in April. But it's in February. More specifically, the first week of February, which is basically January. Which is basically next week. So very not ready.

There have been a few changes. We've canceled the Pirates & Pals fireworks cruise in favor of DAH in Magic Kingdom. Which we originally weren't visiting at all, so that should be fun. It's on our arrival day (Thursday), so we swapped Epcot Future World and Animal Kingdom. Now we'll have all day Friday at Animal Kingdom, which should be much more relaxing then the original plan of a partial Thursday. I made us dinner reservations at Citiricos for Thursday evening, before DAH. In theory we can walk to the park from there.

I did have to cancel our Sanaa dinner reservation altogether. We'd rather just stay as late as possible in AK and see all the phosphorescence in Pandora. So we'll have Boma brunch that morning, Yak & Yeti for lunch, and Satuli Canteen for dinner. I pushed up our Boma brunch reservation a little since we'll be getting in so late from DAH the night before but I may try to move it back again. We're pretty resilient on vacation. And our 7-year old has no trouble with really late nights.

The big change that is still up in the air is that we finally booked our flights and we're not flying out of Orlando on Sunday until 6:30pm. So that's practically a bonus day. Originally we didn't have any time for Disney Springs but now that's the logical thing to do on Sunday. No additional admission to pay! I just have to decide between Homecoming and Raglan Road for brunch. That is going to be super tough. No clue what we'll do with the day beyond that.