Quick fix trip, what am I behind on?

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

Okay, so middle school is rough, hormones suck, and I think my princess and I need a Disney fix... we were going to wait till Star Wars land is done... but really, there is no such thing as too many Disney trips.

So here is where I am at... we need a quick fix trip. Flying out of Oregon landing around 9:30 at LGB on the Thursday after Halloween... I already decided that we would skip all Halloween time since I didn't get this brainstorm before the party tix sold out... so arriving 11/2, drop stuff off at the hotel and be in the parks around 10:30. Been there, done that, and know we can do it in an hour lol. Then we would have that day... why are park hours not posted yet?! Until... 8? 9 pm? I guess we will see. And then Friday... flight out at 7:45 pm I think... we won't check bags... so I feel we could stay in the parks till 5. So that's a good day too.

So here is where I am stuck. I have never done 2 Day park hoppers. And I have never stayed off site. But if I am doing this down and dirty... then that means 2 days and off site. So no MM for us. We can deal with that, we will just start with DCA if MM is on Friday, but heck I don't even know if it is on Friday or not. I am kinda guessing no fireworks on a Thursday. But what about F! Do they still do dinner packages? We love blue bayou, so the F! Dinner was a no brainer. Food and good seats. Otherwise, I don't have any big desires for character meals or other ressies... we need to eat corn dogs and Matterhorn macaroons and tigger tails. Seriously girl bonding time.

What am I missing? The new FP app thing? A must do? We usually work the FPs pretty hard.

Where should we stay? Want to be close... we are used to PP and that walk, cutting thru GCH... part of me wants to splurge and do GCH since it is just one night... I am soooo spoiled! But not sure if that would get me any perks, maybe MM on Friday?

Anything I didn't think of? I figure crowds will be low... Halloween is over. But may still have stragglers that came in that week.

Tia!

 

[smartlabelprint]

I'd try to stay at best western park place inn, Camelot inn or park vue.

I'd get max pass since you only have 2 days. $40 extra. It may be busy since that's dapper day weekend.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

I don't think you will have fireworks or Fantasmic but World of Color should be running Thursday night.

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

So I did a quickie search of hotels on harbor, and any that I would consider staying at are booked. Must be because of Dapper Days--which I had completely forgotten about. So I called Disney up... I am a spoiled brat... and decided I would just splurge on the cheapest room left at GCH. So we are booked.

I updated my app so now it has info about the max pass on it. Not sure how to make that work... I assume when my package gets here I can link my tickets to it somehow?

The nice lady on the phone told me the hours on Thursday will be 9-9, and I will now have EMH on Friday at DCA. I assume the thing to do still is wide-right to RSR and FP it for later. We love WOC, so if that is all that is available on Thu night, that is what we will watch... although bummed we are missing new F! But that is what I get for crazy last minute planning.

We park hop... so odds are we will start in DL on Thursday, finish in DCA for dinner and WOC, and then start in DCA Friday for EMH and finish our day in DL. I am assuming that max pass will make sense and I will be able to plan our passes with hopping in mind?

I have never ever booked a trip so close to going, or with so little time in the parks. But I think this is what we need... a little dose of Disney magic!

 

[disneymum58]

Since you are planning to stay onsite, look to see if Dapper Day rates are still available? Using those rates is the only way I have been able to afford the GC.

 

[smartlabelprint]

Here's the link to dapper day for a hotel discount! Good call pp. I forgot about this.

http://dapperday.com/

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

Minimum of a two night stay for the dapper day rates

 

[wench]

Okay, so middle school is rough, hormones suck, and I think my princess and I need a Disney fix... we were going to wait till Star Wars land is done... but really, there is no such thing as too many Disney trips.

So here is where I am at... we need a quick fix trip. Flying out of Oregon landing around 9:30 at LGB on the Thursday after Halloween... I already decided that we would skip all Halloween time since I didn't get this brainstorm before the party tix sold out... so arriving 11/2, drop stuff off at the hotel and be in the parks around 10:30. Been there, done that, and know we can do it in an hour lol. Then we would have that day... why are park hours not posted yet?! Until... 8? 9 pm? I guess we will see. And then Friday... flight out at 7:45 pm I think... we won't check bags... so I feel we could stay in the parks till 5. So that's a good day too.

So here is where I am stuck. I have never done 2 Day park hoppers. And I have never stayed off site. But if I am doing this down and dirty... then that means 2 days and off site. So no MM for us. We can deal with that, we will just start with DCA if MM is on Friday, but heck I don't even know if it is on Friday or not. I am kinda guessing no fireworks on a Thursday. But what about F! Do they still do dinner packages? We love blue bayou, so the F! Dinner was a no brainer. Food and good seats. Otherwise, I don't have any big desires for character meals or other ressies... we need to eat corn dogs and Matterhorn macaroons and tigger tails. Seriously girl bonding time.

What am I missing? The new FP app thing? A must do? We usually work the FPs pretty hard.

Where should we stay? Want to be close... we are used to PP and that walk, cutting thru GCH... part of me wants to splurge and do GCH since it is just one night... I am soooo spoiled! But not sure if that would get me any perks, maybe MM on Friday?

Anything I didn't think of? I figure crowds will be low... Halloween is over. But may still have stragglers that came in that week.

Tia!

Your planning kind of reminds me of me. I decided a couple months ago that my son & I have to be at DLR for Halloween. We used to go every Halloween, but missed last year. But, I was gonna keep it cheap. So, I booked 2 nights at PPH & bought my party tickets for the 31st. Then I added a night at the beginning of my stay. Then I upgraded to GCH. Then I added a night at the end of my stay.

Be careful or your one night trip will turn into a week in no time!

 

[Whistlebee]

What about booking the Dessert Party for WOC? I took my 2 girls on a last minute (ok, we booked like 3 or 4 days ahead) trip in April. We did the Dessert Party and all 3 of us loved it. My 10 year old kept thanking me and saying how cool it was. It was a great end to a special trip!
We love staying onsite too and the first time we stayed off-site I was pretty bummed. We booked at the Fairfield Inn on Harbour. We still had an amazing trip! I always love on-site but especially for longer trips when I know we will hang out at the hotel and use the pool. If I'm just doing a quick 2 nights with my girls we usually stay at the Fairfield Inn. We can't bear to pull ourselves away from the parks anyway!
Have a great trip, last minute ones are the best!!!

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Minimum of a two night stay for the dapper day rates

Also to get the rate one of your dates has to be that Saturday or Sunday.

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

I told my dd on the way home from school... I added the trip to my calendar on my phone... and I was driving, so I handed her my phone and said... hey, what are we doing that weekend after Halloween? I feel like something is going on, but I can't remember what?

So she opened the app and scrolled and scrolled... and said, dad has the dentist... uh, Disneyland?!

Omg she was bursting with excitement! I have a very smiley teenager right now

The dessert party is something we have done for F! and loved... but for WOC... we are weird and like to be in the wet zone lol... we typically do Ariels dinner and then when we get there, we show our dinner pass and say we want to be up front and they let us. Maybe this time we will watch from further back lol. Yesterday I fought the app and the webpage and managed to not get anything booked. So I called Disney dining and booked Ariels for WOC dinner... the menu sure hasn't changed in all these years... which I guess is good. I like the tri-tip and dd likes the chicken.

We typically stay four or five nights, which really puts GCH out of range... so I am kinda excited to stay there for the one night, even though we will be going non-stop and won't really get to enjoy the ease of going back to the room as much. I am planning on room service breakfast for our one breakfast. Because we can get it early and make EMH rope drop easily. Dd has to have a Mickey waffle! This is such a weird trip for me to "plan"... usually we have nap time in the afternoons/pool time to get away from the crowds. We do sit down meals to take a break... lots of pacing ourselves because we go for as many days as we can (used to be 6 day hoppers were available).

After discussion with dd... our 1st day meal plan looks like this: dole whip, tigger tail, Matterhorn macaroon, and please let them be doing dill pickle popcorn in carsland... then Ariels dinner for some real food. 2nd day--room service breakfast, Mickey pretzel, corn dog, and quite possibly another tigger tail.

Now I am trying to study up on max pass and how best to use it. We won't be walking in the parks till ~10:30 on Thursday... so I know I will want to hit it hard right away. I read something about soarin being 1 screen right now and really slow? So maybe try and get a couple things done and then book that? If I book it and the fp isn't until afternoon it would mean no using FPs until then I assume. We plan on doing DL first and then crossing over mid-afternoon. Then for day two, I think we hit EMH and that next hour doing as much as possible and then start on the FPs again... from what I have read, not waste your time so much with the app the first hour? I am so behind on reading up on this!

Anyhow, thanks for the ideas and support on my crazy last minute trip! Only you all understand the NEED for Disney!

 

[wench]

OMG, you

I told my dd on the way home from school... I added the trip to my calendar on my phone... and I was driving, so I handed her my phone and said... hey, what are we doing that weekend after Halloween? I feel like something is going on, but I can't remember what?

So she opened the app and scrolled and scrolled... and said, dad has the dentist... uh, Disneyland?!

Omg she was bursting with excitement! I have a very smiley teenager right now

The dessert party is something we have done for F! and loved... but for WOC... we are weird and like to be in the wet zone lol... we typically do Ariels dinner and then when we get there, we show our dinner pass and say we want to be up front and they let us. Maybe this time we will watch from further back lol. Yesterday I fought the app and the webpage and managed to not get anything booked. So I called Disney dining and booked Ariels for WOC dinner... the menu sure hasn't changed in all these years... which I guess is good. I like the tri-tip and dd likes the chicken.

We typically stay four or five nights, which really puts GCH out of range... so I am kinda excited to stay there for the one night, even though we will be going non-stop and won't really get to enjoy the ease of going back to the room as much. I am planning on room service breakfast for our one breakfast. Because we can get it early and make EMH rope drop easily. Dd has to have a Mickey waffle! This is such a weird trip for me to "plan"... usually we have nap time in the afternoons/pool time to get away from the crowds. We do sit down meals to take a break... lots of pacing ourselves because we go for as many days as we can (used to be 6 day hoppers were available).

After discussion with dd... our 1st day meal plan looks like this: dole whip, tigger tail, Matterhorn macaroon, and please let them be doing dill pickle popcorn in carsland... then Ariels dinner for some real food. 2nd day--room service breakfast, Mickey pretzel, corn dog, and quite possibly another tigger tail.

Now I am trying to study up on max pass and how best to use it. We won't be walking in the parks till ~10:30 on Thursday... so I know I will want to hit it hard right away. I read something about soarin being 1 screen right now and really slow? So maybe try and get a couple things done and then book that? If I book it and the fp isn't until afternoon it would mean no using FPs until then I assume. We plan on doing DL first and then crossing over mid-afternoon. Then for day two, I think we hit EMH and that next hour doing as much as possible and then start on the FPs again... from what I have read, not waste your time so much with the app the first hour? I am so behind on reading up on this!

Anyhow, thanks for the ideas and support on my crazy last minute trip! Only you all understand the NEED for Disney!

Omg you really are like me! I told my son about our trip by handing him my phone, so that he could see the "weird" email Disney had sent me. It was the receipt for our room reservation. Of course I had to leave some kind of surprise. I showed him the receipt from when I booked PPH, so he won't know that we're actually at GCH until we get there. And I love the tritip at Ariels. I have to eat there every trip, even when we only go for 2 days like you are.

Anyway, back to your trip. Great news on MP, the window to pull a new pass is 90 mins. So, if you can't get Soarin until late afternoon, you don't have to wait until then to get a new one. You only have to wait 90 minutes.

 

[Mommy2PrincessAbby]

Thanks for the 90 minute heads up on MP... so many things I wasn't paying attention to because I didn't think we were going for so long. Silly me.

I know that the Halloween stuff will be quickly coming down and will be just as quickly replaced with Christmas. It will be such a weird thing to experience. I am hoping to catch a glimpse or two of what they did for DCA this year. I wonder if ghost galaxy will be running still? We love NBC so I am glad that will be up.

Can you guys tell my brain hasn't really stopped since I booked? 40 more days!

 

[Jaina]

Sounds super fun! I hope you have a great trip!!