September PTR: The Disney Mulligan (9/3 - Go time!)

[JustCor]

Burning away the night

Days off always throw me for a loop. It always feels like whatever day off I get during the week has to be filled with stuff that I wouldn't be able to accomplish otherwise. My sleep patterns are a little off because of it. Since I'm not sleeping and there's nothing but trash on the tv, it's time for more planning. A lot of my planning in the last week or two has pretty much been fiddling with fast pass times and considering adding a few more selections. I believe there's an Epcot day and a Hollywood Studios day where I only have two of the three selections filled. I like Epcot quite a bit, but the ride selection there is abysmal. Hollywood Studios is similar, just without the food and fun of the World Showcase to bolster the rest of the park. So, I look at my times at all the parks and do a mental play by play to see just how well it will work out. For example:

Ok, it's Magic Kingdom day and I have a 9:30am FP at 7DMT. What am I doing the night before? Oh yeah, I did a late day at Epcot because it was my first day at Walt Disney World and I spent the morning driving up and getting checked into my room and set up before going to dinner and watching fireworks. Did I sleep ok? Probably, but I'm probably worn out and could use the extra hour or two to really recover and maybe eat a full breakfast since I have a late dinner. I should probably see if I can move 7DMT back an hour or to later in the day so I don't have to rush, and that could close up the almost three hour gap between that and Space Mountain...
​

So a lot of that. In my head, I've already done this full trip at least half a dozen times just to figure out my fast pass scheduling. It may be a little obsessive and more than a little crazy, but a little planning now could help avoid some frustration later. Sometimes I just stare at the times to see if they look funny. I may have changed the time of an FP or an ADR just because the text on the screen looked a little funny after staring at it for five minutes. I'm sure there's some rational reason in the deep recesses of my brain as to why the text would look funny, but I'm not sure what it would be. That's what we call high quality, professional trip planning, my friends.

 

[JustCor]

Oh my god, shoes

In less than 30 days, I'll be at Disney again. I feel like I should be pumped. Instead, I'm at the "I'm missing something very obvious and important" stage of this planning and it's making me a bit crazy. I'm sure it probably doesn't help to continuously go over my plans with a fine tooth comb trying to tweak and polish everything. It might be time to take a step back and stay off of MDE for a couple of days and see how the whole thing shakes out. The reality is, I'm probably done with a majority of the planning. No amount of moving fast passes around will open up any hidden experiences or new rides. The restaurants will continue to be the same restaurants if I eat at 5pm or 9pm, though my level of hunger may grow substantially. So, enough tinkering. We'll call these plans good and be done with it.

In other slightly related news, my attempts at dressing more like an adult are underway, starting with finding a nice pair of clean, comfortable shoes that aren't neon orange and yellow or some other candy colored combination. I'm tackling shoes first because they're always the hardest things for me to buy. I have very wide feet. If I had normal, human shaped feet in regular sizes, this search would be over. There's a plethora of options covering the entire shoe spectrum. Throw a couple of E's next to the shoe size, and selection takes a nose dive. Apparently, wide feet = orthopedic clunky shoes to most manufacturers. So, the search is on for something that looks stylish and not "grandpa's feet are swollen from edema so we got him this synthetic leather chunks clumsily lay around his stumpy legs and feet". This may be difficult. Wide feet are just not stylish.

 

[hockeyprincess25]

Oh my god, shoes

In less than 30 days, I'll be at Disney again. I feel like I should be pumped. Instead, I'm at the "I'm missing something very obvious and important" stage of this planning and it's making me a bit crazy. I'm sure it probably doesn't help to continuously go over my plans with a fine tooth comb trying to tweak and polish everything. It might be time to take a step back and stay off of MDE for a couple of days and see how the whole thing shakes out. The reality is, I'm probably done with a majority of the planning. No amount of moving fast passes around will open up any hidden experiences or new rides. The restaurants will continue to be the same restaurants if I eat at 5pm or 9pm, though my level of hunger may grow substantially. So, enough tinkering. We'll call these plans good and be done with it.

In other slightly related news, my attempts at dressing more like an adult are underway, starting with finding a nice pair of clean, comfortable shoes that aren't neon orange and yellow or some other candy colored combination. I'm tackling shoes first because they're always the hardest things for me to buy. I have very wide feet. If I had normal, human shaped feet in regular sizes, this search would be over. There's a plethora of options covering the entire shoe spectrum. Throw a couple of E's next to the shoe size, and selection takes a nose dive. Apparently, wide feet = orthopedic clunky shoes to most manufacturers. So, the search is on for something that looks stylish and not "grandpa's feet are swollen from edema so we got him this synthetic leather chunks clumsily lay around his stumpy legs and feet". This may be difficult. Wide feet are just not stylish.

LOL on the clunky feet. My DH is a 15 EEEE...almost the most impossible size to find in anything you would want to put on your feet. For our late honeymoon trip he had good luck with Asics. They were a touch loud, but the stylish loud, not the I am trying to be 15 again loud.

My trip planning has hit the same wall you have found. It is what it is. We are there for 11 days. We will get a chance to do the things that are important to us. I am done with the re-arranging. Well, except for the food. I will still be playing with those until 24 hours before...lol

 

[JustCor]

LOL on the clunky feet. My DH is a 15 EEEE...almost the most impossible size to find in anything you would want to put on your feet. For our late honeymoon trip he had good luck with Asics. They were a touch loud, but the stylish loud, not the I am trying to be 15 again loud.

My trip planning has hit the same wall you have found. It is what it is. We are there for 11 days. We will get a chance to do the things that are important to us. I am done with the re-arranging. Well, except for the food. I will still be playing with those until 24 hours before...lol

I feel his pain. I'm in the 4E club, and could probably go up to a 5E for a better fit, but good luck finding anything not ridiculously priced or styled in a 5E. I've learn to live in New Balance, mostly. Asics cut their toe box just a little too narrow for my toes, so it's rare that I get to wear them. I have (very surprisingly) found a handful of Nike shoes that fit incredibly well. I'd written them off a long time ago because all of their shoes tend to be super narrow, but they have a few styles in 4E that are well designed and shaped right, though I tend to have to go a half size up in their shoes. Still, the variety is nice.

I think that I've found a solution to my shoes. I ordered some Rockports that looks very nice. They're 3E, which is iffy, but I believe I had a pair of Rockport boat shoes before that were really comfortable, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[JustCor]

Please sir, may I have some more

I'm in a "mulling over semi-crazy ideas" mood lately. On my current mental agenda is the thought of adding another day or two to this trip, either on the front end or the back end. It would require a stay elsewhere, and potentially off-property, but it's an interesting idea I'm giving a little bit of thought to. Staying off Disney grounds would be cheaper (of course). There's a nice deal that happened to fall into my email inbox recently for an off-site hotel that's (supposedly) a mile from the gates of Magic Kingdom. Would it be odd to say that there's a slight feeling that pushing this trip any longer would jinx it? It almost feels like there's truth in that notion.

My Magic Band shipped a day or two ago. I've been trying to not think about it so that it would be a surprise, but now I'm keenly aware of it. I've stayed away from the tracking, but my best guess is that it'll be here tomorrow or Saturday. I do wish it was more of a surprise, but that can't be helped.

T-25 days until go time. It can't come soon enough. My updates are massively underwhelming, especially when compared to the other, far more incredibly detailed and exciting pre-trip reports that are taking place elsewhere in this subforum.

 

[rdkeim]

Your shoes post made me LOL. You are skilled at self deprecating humor. I'll be watching for your TR!

 

[JustCor]

Your shoes post made me LOL. You are skilled at self deprecating humor. I'll be watching for your TR!

The struggles are real! Thank you for following along!

 

[JustCor]

It seems awful plain in retrospect

Today I received a piece of mail:

I guess that means that we're fast approaching go time. That's pretty much assured with Monday being the three-week (edit: sigh) mark.

So close, yet so far.

This band is underwhelming. I was very excited about a purple band when they were released, but now I'm not exactly sure why I thought it was so great. I got my purple fix with the purple Haunted Mansion band, which looks much more appealing. Perhaps it was because of my waffling between buying and not buying a Dooney and Bourke band that this comes as a bit of a letdown. Granted, I'm still up $50, so there's something rather appealing in this purple band.

Other updates:

My old man comfortable shoes have arrived and they're awesome. Essentially, they look like this:

Stylish. I'm going to try and break them in a little bit in the days leading up the Disney, and I've purchased some supposedly good insoles to slip into them that should have arrived today but are on delay until sometime next week. Darn. It would have been nice to try the whole setup out with a nice walk somewhere.

I'll pick up some nice shirts and pants at some point before go time and I'll potentially look like I shopped for clothing since graduating high school twenty years ago. One can hope, right?

So that's the update for now. Fast Pass: check. ADRs: check. Magic Band: check. Fancy pants clothing: almost there. This is working out way too well. I think it's time to start dosing up on vitamin C and zinc and other placebos to keep myself from getting sick before my trip. That would probably suck.

Until later, friends.

 

[JustCor]

A... reschedule?

I received an email this morning about two of my fast passes being cancelled. No reason was given, just that these two had been cancelled by Disney. Thankfully, they had been rescheduled. To the same time. On the same day. For both picks. Ok? Seems strange, but I'm no worse off (or better off I suppose) than before, just seems an odd email to receive. I have a friend who might be interested in stopping in on one or two of my days to see Disney for the first time in decades. What I know about my friends (bless their hearts) is that they are a tiny bit on the flakey side. I'm leaning towards them not showing up, but stranger things have happened. This is Disney, lest I forget.

All goes on according to some kind of loose plan. I jumped the gun on my last update. I thought I was two weeks away, but I'm at 3. This might be a minor letdown. I was ready to turn off the ol' brain and coast to the finish line, but I can't do that quite yet.

 

[hockeyprincess25]

I am all for coasting to the finish line... I have 2 weekends left of work. My weekends are my busy time. 45 hours usually between fri-sun. I was usually off Thurs and Mon which gave me plenty of time to rest before the long weekend and then recoup after. But I have been stuck on Thursdays and some Mondays for the last few weeks so I can train. Which of course is harder than actually working. I have told my boss I have really earned this vacation!

 

[JustCor]

Vacation extenders

I built three days on both sides of this trip as a cushion for any number of things: delays, changes, extensions, sleep, or recovery. Essentially, I built-in a ramp up and ramp down to my vacation because it seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I've been getting antsy with that time, though. It felt like space that needed to be filled. I toyed with the idea of going to MNSSHP this year, but the dates didn't line up on my trip. It'd either be the Friday before or the Friday after. It would have been easy to tack on another day after my stay and hit the latter end of my trip for the Halloween Party, but each time I looked at options, the price began to increase to the point of it not making sense. In my thinking, I'd want to be on Disney property to avoid the mess of trying to get to my car and then trying to get out of the park, and then dealing with driving through the traffic, all while being fairly worn out. I cringe at the thought of that traffic. A one night Disney Resort stay just doesn't make sense. It'd be too much money and too much of a letdown after coming out of GF. On the front end, it'd be the same problem, plus two extra days to kill before headed to GF.

I think I'll be ok without the Halloween Party. I had a fun time last year, and may sneak a vacation in sometime in October if I feel the need to go, but I may pass on this year.

Instead, I looked at my options and did a little hotel shopping and tacked on two days at the beginning of the trip. I had a mental budget in mind that I really didn't want to break, and I managed to stay almost spot on to that number. So, after much searching and deliberating and getting cold feet more times than I care to admit over the past few days (bring out your fingers and toes and add a few friends), I booked a stay at Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club and Lodge. Say that three times fast.

that that that

I must admit, I'm not a golfer. My exposure to golf has been hitting balls at a driving range and reading about the almost crazy drunken stories of John Daly and secretly rooting for him to win. So, why a golf-centric resort in a land of many, many other resorts? In this situation, it came down to reviews. They're all pretty fantastic. It's clean (yay!), quiet (yay!!), and staffed with incredibly courteous people (yay!!!). I've become almost as stoked about staying here as I am about staying at the Grand Floridian.

There are now 17 days until my stay at GF, and now 15 for Bay Hill. I just need to push through two more weeks of work. I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can...

 

[KnK]

It's those last few weeks that get you the most......so close but oh so far away. I'm in the same boat at the moment. Very busy at work but no motivation to want to work. Disney vacation brain has taken over.

 

[JustCor]

It's those last few weeks that get you the most......so close but oh so far away. I'm in the same boat at the moment. Very busy at work but no motivation to want to work. Disney vacation brain has taken over.

It's been bad. I'm trying not to count down the days just so I don't get into that whole thing where a day seems like a week and a week seems like a year, but it's hard not to at this point. It's so close now!

 

[JustCor]

Ten fingers, five toes

Tomorrow will be the two week mark for my Disney trip I've spent this weekend on call for work, so I'm spending the time seeing if it feels like there will be anything I want to change between now and then. I wish I had more interesting things to update on, but things are going smoothly at the moment. There are small things that I do need to take care of between now and trip time (bills, haircuts, an oil change, buying a decent cooler) but none of it is interesting.

I do need to make some very minor plans to cover my stay at Bay Hill, but that may boil down to a stop at Universal and some dinner plans and not much more. It's quickly becoming my pre-vacation vacation to give me some decompressing time before doing the Disney thing. I ate at Teak Neighborhood Grill after reading a number of positive things about it on these forums and it was an excellent restaurant. I think Teak on arrival night at Bay Hill may be a good plan. I've talked to a few friends who live in the Orlando area, and we may end up putting down large amounts of beef at Fogo de Chao as well. I'm going to have to go hungry to that wonderful meal.

So, 13 days to Bay Hill, 15 days to Disney. These are the long days.

 

[JustCor]

Please stop teasing me

Do I want it? Yes. Do I need it? No. Am I going to buy it?

That's the question I've been kicking around since I found out about this band. It looks fun, and would fit nicely with my other two Haunted Mansion bands. I've still been continually kicking around the idea of buying the previously posted Dooney and Bourke MagicBand. I've come close twice, going so far as to put the item into the online shopping cart, only to stare at it and wonder why I feel the need to buy a $50 MagicBand when I already have a fairly decent sized collection of different MagicBands already.

So, when this pops up, at half the cost no less, I just feel the money burning a hole in my wallet. But I'm holding off. There's still a credible voice in my head asking me to try and avoid spending any money until I get to the parks. I mean, if we want to get down to the meat and potatoes of it, both bands (and many others) are easily available at any number of places at any one of the parks and Disney Springs. It would be ridiculously easy to pop into one of those places and walk out with the band in seconds. As we approach vacation time, the shipping on the band would probably arrive not too much before the trip itself, so I don't gain any real instant gratification of picking up the band now. So, I'm forbidding myself from purchasing any MagicBands online. Park only.

Still. Look at it. It looks like it might even glow in the dark, and if that's the case, then how can I not buy it? I would be a fool not to.

 

[JustCor]

The weather, and how to be under it

My tv watching lately has been close to zero. I'm not saying that as any form of triumph or some kind of superiority, but rather to profess to ignorance. It turns out there's some kinda storm brewing south of Florida that's creating a heck of a lot of rain around here. I'd probably know that if I tried to keep up to date on things, but I've been blissfully unaware until the skies opened up at dumped a ton of water on us. It might be time to plug back in to something like that.

The weather isn't the only gross thing going on around these parts. All of the water that rained down upon us today is probably half the amount of snot that's just filled my sinus cavities and poured right out of my nose and caused my head to feel like a swollen balloon. I hung out with a friend recently and, naturally, his kid is sick with whatever plague is cycling through their school now that it's back in session. I may have SARS.

Or Zika.

Or Bubonic Plague.

Or Legionnaire's Disease.

I should probably be quarantined so I don't spread this zombie plague to others, but if it's in the schools it's probably too late. We did our best to stave off the pandemic but the children, there's just no stopping them.

So that's the update. Torrential downpours and a lot of wind. Also, there's a storm outside.

 

[JustCor]

The appeal is real

I'm off from work today and have been taking care of some small things that are somewhat trip related. I got a nice soft cooler for my car/room to throw some drinks and treats in for the ride up and for a quick place to keep a snack or two. I've started putting aside some clothing to be packed for the trip. I've pulled out my camera and cleared out the memory card for a fresh set of shots. Most importantly, for now anyway, I found a MagicBand that I really liked and purchased it.

This thing is sweet! I love the sketch style drawings. They just look so cool to me. My hope (fingers crossed) is that it arrives before next Saturday. I would be really bummed to have this thing sitting in my mailbox while I'm away at Disney. This is the first purchase I've made from the Disney Shop Parks app, so I have no idea how quickly it actually ships. I'm going to be chomping at the bit waiting for it to arrive.

I'm still sick-ish, but it's an underlying thing. It's not enough to keep me from doing my daily stuff, but there's enough of a scratchy throat and drippy nose to remind me that something is happening. I'll keep hydrated and chomping on vitamin c/zinc stuff to see if that does anything. There's a week and a day left until go time for Orlando, and a week and three days for Disney, so there's a small amount of time on my side. It's starting to feel like a real trip!

 

[KnK]

Glad you found 'the band.' Still like the HM one, kinda wonder too if it glowed in the dark.

 

[JustCor]

Glad you found 'the band.' Still like the HM one, kinda wonder too if it glowed in the dark.

I've looked for product details on the band they're slim to none. The Shop Parks app has the band, but there is almost no description whatsoever, which I find kind of odd. It seems like it would make sense to glow in the dark, but I thought the same thing about the eyes on the other Haunted Mansion magicbands and they do nothing at all (disappointing).

 

[JustCor]

The small numbers

Ok, so things feel real now. I'm down to a whole bunch of single digit numbers: 4, 6, and 8.

4 days of work left
6 days until I'm in Orlando
8 days until Disney

If things play out the way they've been going over the past few weeks, tomorrow is going to be nightmare busy at work, Tuesday is going to be hectic, Wednesday may be sedate, and Thursday I'll be completely chomping at the bit to get through the day. Sounds about right.

So, how about some actual trip update stuff? Tomorrow I'll be making reservations for Fogo de Chao for next Sunday. A few friends are joining me for an epic feasting of meat products. This was one of those things that I wasn't counting on actually happening. It's a big chunk of change to plunk down for one meal. Between the amazing food and the fantastic service, I have no problem justifying the costs. I was concerned that my friends may not feel the same way. I'm pretty ok eating solo at most places, but this would not be one of them. This is definitely a communal type of thing.

I haven't figured out my Saturday meal yet. I want a nice meal to kick off this trip, but I'm not exactly sure what that meal will be. I'm leaning a little bit towards either Sushi or a burger at Teak. It may come down to a last minute decision, or I may end up finding something in the coming days when I sweep Google Maps looking for restaurants in the area. I have a new obsession, though, that may influence things. I found out very recently (maybe 2 weeks ago now) that I really like sweet corn on the cobb. I've gone 30+ years hating the stuff and suddenly discovered that I love it. With that in mind, I'm obsessed with finding a place to try Mexican Street Corn, or Elote, or whatever it's called. If I can find a place that serves it, I may just hit it up. Corn on the cobb. Who'da thunk? The other option that I haven't really explored is the on-site restaurants at Bay Hill. Supposedly they may be pretty good. A nice, lazy day on grounds could be in order. We'll see. Saturday is one of the few days that I'm really not stressing over.

I'm still liking my Disney selections, which is kind of surprising for me this late in the game. By now I would normally be in a slight panic and ready to blow up all of my plans to start fresh, but I'm pretty darn happy with my selections still. I'm looking forward to going to The Wave for Dinner on Disney day 1, and I'm still looking forward to giving the meatballs at Trattoria al Forno a go. I may still hit the Movie/Dinner thing at the AMC theater in Disney Springs, if there's a decent movie to see at least. I think I'm ready. I just have to get through 4 days of work. Four whole days. 40 (or 50) hours plus two days of call in the mix. I can do this. Bring it on.