Hello everyone, My name is Michael, I am 30 and I work 3rd shift stocking at a major retail store in North Carolina. This is my first Trip Report, which is kind of appropriate since this is my first time planning any sort of major vacation. I visited Disney as a teenager and grew up with the cartoons and the movies.
When it came time to give myself a (hopefully) hassle-free treat for a birthday trip Disney seemed like the best place to pick and I wanted the challenge/experience of planning a trip for myself. I didnt realize until I had booked the trip that we would be popping into Disney during the Food and Wine Festival.
Faithful Companion:
Bradi, who lives in Arkansas and is taking a vacation from her self-employed job as well, or at least as much as I can pry the laptop out of her hands in our time away from the parks. She used to come to WDW as a chaperone for student groups, but this will be her first visit without having to worry about anyone but herself. She loves fireworks, so I am trying to get as many of the big fireworks displays and shows in as we can.
Travel Dates: October 2nd-7th. we are staying at the All Star Music resort, we booked in October of 2012 to give ourselves plenty of lead time on the trip. ASMu seemed like a good bet as we dont see ourselves spending a lot of time in our rooms during the trip. We are both flying in from NC and AR so ME is a great option for the both of us. The Cast Member over the phone assured us that if we arrived separately that getting to the parks and hotel would be no problem.
Food and Such: We intially started out with the Quick Service Dining plan, but after looking all of the dining options we upgraded to the regular dining plan. Neither of us are breakfast people so snack credits should be fine for that. We picked out what parks we want to go to, and a few places we want to eat, but arent going to stick to a strict schedule otherwise. We still have around a month to go before we can schedule ADRs but here is the projected plan and hints or recommendations would be great:
Day 1 (10/2-Arrival-mid afternoon) : Counter Service at Downtown Disney
Day 2 (10/3- Animal Kingdom/EPCOT) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch-Hotel/grazing at F&W, Dinner-Teppan Edo or Big River Grill before an evening at Jellyrolls.
Day 3 (10/4- Hollywood Studios) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch-Mama Melrose for Fantasmic!, Dinner-Hotel after Fantasmic, possible Monorail Bar Tour.
Day 4 (10/5 Birthday Day at EPCOT!!) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch- CS somewhere at EPCOT, Dinner- Rose and Crown, hopefully with a patio view for Illuminations!. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Day 5 (10/6 Magic Kingdom) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch-Liberty Tree Tavern, Dinner-Be Our Guest-trying to schedule before Wishes
Day 6(10/7 Leaving) Breakfast at Hotel to burn last CS credit, Flights home
This is a joint celebration for us, my birthday, and she is allowing herself time away from her work. Normally we are both night owls, but there is more than enough to do at Disney during the daytime so I dont think we will have problems finding stuff to do or getting to sleep afterwards.
I plan on getting some bottled water and the like delivered to the resort via Garden Grocer, or Amazon I am still looking into which would be the better option
When it came time to give myself a (hopefully) hassle-free treat for a birthday trip Disney seemed like the best place to pick and I wanted the challenge/experience of planning a trip for myself. I didnt realize until I had booked the trip that we would be popping into Disney during the Food and Wine Festival.
Faithful Companion:
Bradi, who lives in Arkansas and is taking a vacation from her self-employed job as well, or at least as much as I can pry the laptop out of her hands in our time away from the parks. She used to come to WDW as a chaperone for student groups, but this will be her first visit without having to worry about anyone but herself. She loves fireworks, so I am trying to get as many of the big fireworks displays and shows in as we can.
Travel Dates: October 2nd-7th. we are staying at the All Star Music resort, we booked in October of 2012 to give ourselves plenty of lead time on the trip. ASMu seemed like a good bet as we dont see ourselves spending a lot of time in our rooms during the trip. We are both flying in from NC and AR so ME is a great option for the both of us. The Cast Member over the phone assured us that if we arrived separately that getting to the parks and hotel would be no problem.
Food and Such: We intially started out with the Quick Service Dining plan, but after looking all of the dining options we upgraded to the regular dining plan. Neither of us are breakfast people so snack credits should be fine for that. We picked out what parks we want to go to, and a few places we want to eat, but arent going to stick to a strict schedule otherwise. We still have around a month to go before we can schedule ADRs but here is the projected plan and hints or recommendations would be great:
Day 1 (10/2-Arrival-mid afternoon) : Counter Service at Downtown Disney
Day 2 (10/3- Animal Kingdom/EPCOT) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch-Hotel/grazing at F&W, Dinner-Teppan Edo or Big River Grill before an evening at Jellyrolls.
Day 3 (10/4- Hollywood Studios) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch-Mama Melrose for Fantasmic!, Dinner-Hotel after Fantasmic, possible Monorail Bar Tour.
Day 4 (10/5 Birthday Day at EPCOT!!) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch- CS somewhere at EPCOT, Dinner- Rose and Crown, hopefully with a patio view for Illuminations!. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Day 5 (10/6 Magic Kingdom) Breakfast-Snack, Lunch-Liberty Tree Tavern, Dinner-Be Our Guest-trying to schedule before Wishes
Day 6(10/7 Leaving) Breakfast at Hotel to burn last CS credit, Flights home
This is a joint celebration for us, my birthday, and she is allowing herself time away from her work. Normally we are both night owls, but there is more than enough to do at Disney during the daytime so I dont think we will have problems finding stuff to do or getting to sleep afterwards.
I plan on getting some bottled water and the like delivered to the resort via Garden Grocer, or Amazon I am still looking into which would be the better option
