Psycho no more! Trying again at a family vacation

[debdebdebby13]

23 days and I’ve started packing! Ignore our unmade bed!

 

[Kari2684]

Well, I finally figured out where we are going on what days!

April 16-arrive MCO @ 10:38a. This will be a resort/rest/skyliner/disney springs type of day. Just explore and chill after waking up at 4:30 for our flight.

April 17- MAGIC KINGDOM
April 18- ANIMAL KINGDOM
April 19-EPCOT
April 20-HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
April 21-UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
April 22-ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE (I imagine we'll have some crossover between parks during the day since we're doing park to park passes and we want to ride the Hogwarts Express)
April 23-HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS if we don't get ROTR on the 20th, if not we'll go...somewhere else. We haven't yet determined where somewhere else would be.

I mathed out our meals and snacks, estimating $50/day on snacks $60/day on QS meals and actually figured out what we'd spend on our TS reservations and found we'll need approx $1500 for food. I think the snack estimations may be a little high, but I'd rather be cautious. We decided no soda at restaurants, we'll get refillable mugs and get our soda fix at the resort. $4/person/meal would be significantly more expensive! We've had free dining on every previous trip so paying for dining out of pocket is new for us!

I've only made 4 ADRs and I think I'm happy with that. 50s Prime TIme, Via Napoli, Biergarten and Homecomin.

Does anyone have any opinions of the table service restaurants at Universal? Are any worth it? We are planning to eat at the Three Broomsticks and probably the Leaky Cauldron, but that leaves 2 more meals to figure out.

Check out various City Walk restaurants while at Universal. I enjoy Toothsome for their variety, giant milkshakes, theme, and adult beverages. However, a friend of mine with kids will not eat their dinner without a plan to come back for the milkshakes another day- in her experience it’s just an overload by the end of the night. I’ve heard good things about Cowfish, but won’t eat their until my trip in May. Antojitos (Mexican) is really good and their guac is super fresh. I would get on Universal’s site and make reservations and check out the menus.
Also, do not miss Florean Fortescue’s Ice cream in Diagon Alley. They have an amazing earl grey and lavender ice cream.

 

[debdebdebby13]

Check out various City Walk restaurants while at Universal. I enjoy Toothsome for their variety, giant milkshakes, theme, and adult beverages. However, a friend of mine with kids will not eat their dinner without a plan to come back for the milkshakes another day- in her experience it’s just an overload by the end of the night. I’ve heard good things about Cowfish, but won’t eat their until my trip in May. Antojitos (Mexican) is really good and their guac is super fresh. I would get on Universal’s site and make reservations and check out the menus.
Also, do not miss Florean Fortescue’s Ice cream in Diagon Alley. They have an amazing earl grey and lavender ice cream.

Earl Gray and lavender sounds like exactly what Molly would like! Ice cream is definitely on the list.

 

[debdebdebby13]

Prepare yourself for a stream of consciousness. I've been thinking about all kinds of things!


I made a reservation for Toothsome today for Wednesday evening, our first Universal Evening. Surprisingly I'm finding myself equally as excited about our time at UO as I am for our Disney time. I've been working my way through Touring Plans and making plans for each day. This is the first time I've used in for Universal. I keep wondering if somewhere out there there is a good plan for doing just WWOHP, both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley and taking most of a day. I'm sure I could put it together myself, but...

Tomorrow begins our 3 week countdown. I think it's going to fly by, but then I hope the trip doesn't fly by.

I've got an ADR at Kona Cafe and I don't think I want to keep it. The menu is so limited due to covid and it seems like we will overpay, even by Disney standards, for what we'll get. Molly wants a sushi roll and it's $24. That's crazy.

I've got an ADR at Via Napoli that I want to keep, but another at Biergarten that I want to give up I think. We've eaten there before and when it was a buffet I think it would've been worthwhile, but Henry is so dadgum picky, that I don't think he'll eat much of what is offered on the prix fixe menu. The issue I'm having is that there are very few reservations available now. I can't find anything table service to replace those 2 meals.

We are planning on Cosmic Ray's or Pecos Bill's for our QS meal at MK. We could always do another QS meal and skip TS entirely that day. We really enjoy Columbia Harbor House, but it's not currently open.

I don't think we'd have any issue finding something good to eat to replace Biergarten in Epcot. We could snack the day away and be totally successful. That may honestly be our best bet since Cory has so many food requests in World Showcase.

We are eating at 50s Prime Time on our HS day. That's a family favorite, we've eaten there on every trip we've taken! We've also eaten at O'hana every trip, but that's not an option this time

We've also got an ADR for Homecomin in DS. We plan on keeping that so long as we stick with going back to WDW on Friday, the 23rd. I don't know if we are going to do that yet or not. If we get our ROTR group on our first go round then we may not...OR we could make Friday our first park day, even though I didn't plan for that. Maybe if the hours at MK are increased it would be worth it. Currently the MK hours for April 16th are only till 6pm. How likely is that to stay the case? Seems early for a Friday.

Has anyone stayed at Cabana Bay? Any words of wisdom?

Also we've never used any ride-sharing company before. I downloaded Lyft and Uber onto my phone and I looked up how much the rides we need would be. $19 to get from WDW to UO and $22 to get back to the airport. I almost think I should practice using Uber at home before we go. I sound like such a dork.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

I really like Via Napoli. It's one of my must-do ADRs. I am hoping I can score one for my upcoming trip.

I have Touring Plans. I just renewed my WDW subscription and added Universal, but haven't looked at it too much. My trip is still quite a ways away, in summer.

I found ride sharing to be very easy to use. I only have used Lyft, and I've never used it at home - only on trips! I like to turn on the share feature so a friend can follow the GPS tracking of my ride. I also always verify the vehicle license plate before entering the vehicle. Funny story - one time I was using Lyft at the Beach Club, and several others were standing outside the front entrance waiting for ride share vehicles also. I was the 4th to be picked up - and we all were picked up in Corollas. Everybody was verifying the license plates before entering, so that was a good thing.

I find the apps quite easy to use. It's been awhile, but I enter my location and destination, it gives me the price, then I can commit to it. Then I wait - I can watch on the app where the vehicle is an it's estimated arrival time. Then, I take the ride, and once I exit, the app allows me to select my tip. So far, I've been pleased with the condition of the vehicles and the drivers.

FYI: those prices could change. The pricing fluctuates based on supply and demand in real time.

 

[debdebdebby13]

FYI: those prices could change. The pricing fluctuates based on supply and demand in real time.

I hope they don't go up too much! That may blow the budget!

 

[debdebdebby13]

I'm thinking about our spending money budget. We have always had the dining plan, and out of 4 prior trips we have only paid for the plan once. For the first time we need to pay for food out of pocket

Cory and I eat like adults, Henry is a picky eater, but can pack it away at times and Molly isn't picky and also isn't a big eater. Molly could easily eat off the kids menu every where and be happy, but she'll only be able to at counter service places. Henry is picky enough there aren't always kids meals that appeal to him.

We are planning on getting refillable mugs at Disney and maybe again at Universal. As bad as it is, we love soda. Henry doesn't get much, but the rest of us drink at least a little every day. We could add the Universal dining plan to our stay there and only worry about paying at Disney...hmm.

Right now it looks like we'll have $2750 set aside for eating and souvenirs. We'll have 8 full days at theme parks and 2 travel days. The only souvenir I know we'll be getting is droids and droid depot. That will be a little over $200 for both kids.

Now I'm back to writing it all down again and trying to make sure we have enough! I know the dining plan doesn't save much money, but having it just gave peace of mind and no worrying about spending on food!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

If Henry is 7 and Molly is 14, maybe they order of their respective menus and swap plates. Also, since you're not on the dining plan, sometimes things can be more flexible.

I have only had the dining plan once, and I found it kind of complicated to navigate and prefer to pay out of pocket. I know that isn't the preferred way for everyone. I find I spend less on food than what the dining plan would cost me. The one time I got the DDP, it was during a free dining promotion.

 

[debdebdebby13]

Just checking in. I've been in planning mode for the last week. Getting the little details ironed out. Our suitcase is mostly packed, just waiting on Molly to hand over her clothes for the trip. I'm pretty sure they are all washed. I'm trying to figure out what is going in who's backpack since we will all be taking a backpack. 1 will have all of our clothes for our 1 night stay in in Ft Worth, 1 will have the iPad, charging cords for all phones, portable chargers etc, all the tech and entertainment stuff.. One will have medicines/supplements/diabetes supplies. I don't think I ever mentioned here that Molly has type 1 diabetes, she has since she was 5 years old. She's on an insulin pump and CGM so we always have all kinds of stuff to pack for that. We would be up a creek if any of it was lost, so it always goes in a carry on. The last backpack will have whatever else we need...maybe snacks, whatever doesn't fit well in the suitcase. We are also going to pack a duffle bag that can be totally flat in our suitcase just in case we need a second bag to check on the way home.

We will need to ship our droids back home, I think we can do that from the Pop shop.

I always make a grocery order for the trip, this time I think I'm going to try Amazon Now. We've done Garden Grocery in the past, but there are so many options now! I work for Shipt so of course I have a Shipt acct, I also have an Instacart acct, but for whatever reason Prime Now seems appealing to try. Prime Now doesn't deliver here, we aren't a big enough market for them to be here yet.

Henry has been playing baseball and we'll miss some of that, but we stupidly signed him up for a BMX beginners league. Stupid because the practice is every Thursday for 5 weeks and our vacation is going to mean missing 2 of the 5 weeks. We really didn't think that through before we dropped $150 on the league. There are no make up practices, so we are just out 2/5th of that money.

I'm stressing a bit about Molly being able to get all the school work done for the 6 days she will miss. She's in 3 honors classes and the work load is high. She'll be working during our drive down to DFW and on the airplane if she can, and then on the way home. She also plans to attempt to work for a little while at night before bed, but we'll see if that happens. Almost all of her work is on the Chromebook. I kind of hate that. It would be so much easier if she had a paper packet of work from each class. Now she is going to have to attempt to use my phone's hotspot while we drive and we'll pay for internet access on the plane.

Anyway, that's all that's going on here, we are in single digits and getting SOOOO excited!

 

[debdebdebby13]

The suitcase is packed! 4-5 outfits/person, plus pajamas and swimwear. And lots of random stuff like a pop up hamper, frog tog, ziploc bag of smaller ziploc bags , lotion, umbrella etc etc.

We are flying Spirit airlines and they nickel and dime you to death so that is why we are only taking one suitcase! The weight limit is 40lbs and ours is right at 40lbs according to our analog bathroom scale. We will each have a backpack as well, that counts as a personal item and those are free. Actual carry-ons cost as much as a checked bag.

It is one week until we leave and it feels like its right around the corner, but also like it's years away! I need to get some quarters and pennies together for Henry to squish. That is always so much fun for the kids, not so much Molly anymore, but she loved it when she was little and Henry loves it now.


I REALLY wish I could get a reservation for MK now, on our arrival day, but that seems impossible. I check the availability calendar 5x a day and it's never available. Epcot is the only park available on the 16th.