She's Going Back to Back: A September 2019 and February 2020 PTR

[Wood Nymph]

I got in the virtual queue and was in the mid 2000s.

Have you ever used this queue system before? I would have been very nervous about doing this while riding the train. I'm glad that it worked for you.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Have you ever used this queue system before? I would have been very nervous about doing this while riding the train. I'm glad that it worked for you.

Yes, they used the same system for Moonlight Magic in CA, but the start time was 9 Pacific instead of 9 Eastern. I did it from work and tried from my computer and my phone, then stuck with the one that had the better initial placement.
They say the system randomly assigns a number for everyone waiting when the time opens, then everyone after that is behind the initial group in line. I wasn't sure how fast it would fill up because DVC events can be pretty popular. This time I hoped to have it done by the time the train comes at 6:25 (or slightly later) but it took longer to get through the people ahead of me. Fortunately I do have pretty good cell service on the train, and it worked out well.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

This is very strange to be writing in January, but we are under a month to go until our next WDW trip! Since we have been busy with the holidays and our regular lives, this week we got back to looking at WDW stuff to make sure that we weren't missing anything.

Wow it is close!

We placed our Garden Grocer order this weekend, and while we missed the 60 day maximum discount, we got in before 30 days to save 7%. We thought about doing instacart or something else, but it is a really convenient way to get bottled water and a few key groceries for the trip (like mini donuts) so we went ahead and ordered again.


I also like supporting the little guy and really its so easy! I'm not sure how I'd feel about waiting around for and Instacart delivery, even at home we often just have them put groceries on the porch.

I agree, our time at WDW is worth quite a bit, and while I love the WL lobby, I don't want to have to wait on a delivery there. Speaking of time, I went over the park hours to fill out our .pdf schedule that we keep on our phones and the hours are definitely shorter than what we had in September. The earliest park opening with EMH is 8AM, and the latest close is 10PM. This should work fine with our schedule and style, but with lots of 8PM park closings we will have to keep an eye on our transportation options back to the resort. It might justify a Minnie Van...

We also went to TJ Maxx and got everyone new travel pillows for the plane, we normally don't take them but we thought it might be a good idea with the red eye flight.

I traveled to India for work in December and had a hard time sleeping for more than an hour or so at a time on the 15 hour flight, so anything should help. We may never do the red eye again, but for now it is really exciting to arrive at MCO at 6:38 AM, not PM! We even decided to make some Fastpasses for the middle of that day while we wait for our room to be ready.


The red eye could be great or it could be a disaster, at least it's non stop.

Yes, at least we don't have to worry about weather in the middle of the country, but it will be too dark to see the snow we are flying over.

We also went to do our online checkin, and noticed that we hadn't ordered our Magic Bands. While we could just use the ones from last time, we decided to go ahead and place an order for some more free ones so that we have new pucks to use for a while.


I took the opportunity to get an orange band, it's been a while since I got orange. Marshall wanted a red band with Mickey on it and nothing else, so just the regular old Magic band

I went with another Green one, but maybe I'll put it in a fancy band. I looked at the custom band options, but they didn't have anything that grabbed me. They did have resort specific bands for Riviera and Grand Floridian, which made me wish for a WL one, but since it wasn't there I went with my usual green.

Maybe they'll have one in the future.

Yep, and I'll be the first to try to get one.

I'm kind of excited about the new stainless steel resort refill mugs.


Yeah, those seem cool, and might be worth the extra cost, but I do question having to give up the handles. It is so handy to hang them from the handles on the stroller.

Yes it is. I don't know if I'm gonna spring for one or not, but I did think about it this morning while I was drinking my tea on the way to work.

There is a lady on the train I see most mornings with an older refillable resort mug. It always makes me smile.

I called the vet and set up boarding for the dogs so they are all set to go, I'm sure we're forgetting something but I think we've got the basics covered.

Pretty soon we'll bring in the suitcases and start packing. I'm already thinking about what sweatshirts and jeans I want to take.

It is different thinking about dressing warmer but weather there shouldn't be much different than weather at home. We'll bring layers and pants.

And we'll have the washing machine in the room, so that'll be nice again. I think that about sums it up for now, but we'll post again soon as we start to pack.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Have you been following the discussion on the boarding groups for Rise of Resistance? It is a great ride but the boarding groups fill up minutes after the park opens, which really messes up park plans. It is worth it, though.

It trip is really getting close. Does it feel a little surreal to be planning another trip so soon?

 

[Isabelle12345]

We placed our Garden Grocer order this weekend, and while we missed the 60 day maximum discount, we got in before 30 days to save 7%. We thought about doing instacart or something else, but it is a really convenient way to get bottled water and a few key groceries for the trip (like mini donuts) so we went ahead and ordered again.

I haven't been following closely, but is Garden Grocer still authorized to deliver to Bell Services?
If so, I will also place an order for my February trip! I was concerned that with all the problems with scooters / strollers grocery delivery would also be affected, but if not, I agree that the extra cost buys so much time, it is worth it IMO!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Have you been following the discussion on the boarding groups for Rise of Resistance? It is a great ride but the boarding groups fill up minutes after the park opens, which really messes up park plans. It is worth it, though.

It trip is really getting close. Does it feel a little surreal to be planning another trip so soon?

Yeah, we have been watching the Rise of the Resistance hype, and are hoping that it dies down a little bit before we go. We have a couple of days where we can go start early at HS, so we will try to get on it, but if we don't then it will just have to wait till next time.

It is crazy that the next trip is so close. We really have gotten in a once a year groove, so cutting the time between trips so short has us surprised at how it is already time to do stuff. I think we will still be surprised that it is time to go as we are heading to the airport.

I haven't been following closely, but is Garden Grocer still authorized to deliver to Bell Services?
If so, I will also place an order for my February trip! I was concerned that with all the problems with scooters / strollers grocery delivery would also be affected, but if not, I agree that the extra cost buys so much time, it is worth it IMO!

Yes, Garden Grocer does deliver to bell services, but there is a package delivery fee added by the resort as well to have them bring it to you. It isn't too bad, and is still worth it for us.

 

[Leesha.Monster]

We booked a last minute February trip too! We’re leaving from LAX on a Delta red eye flight, same time as yours. It’s just me and my husband for this trip and we’re working a full day, then will go right to the airport. I might be insane.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We booked a last minute February trip too! We’re leaving from LAX on a Delta red eye flight, same time as yours. It’s just me and my husband for this trip and we’re working a full day, then will go right to the airport. I might be insane.

Ha! That's great. Congratulations on your last minute trip. We're glad to see that someone else is crazy enough to take the red eye to WDW to get a deal and have a whole day there on the arrival day. It is going to be neat, I just hope we are awake enough to enjoy it. We are planning on working on our departure day too, but will hopefully get off early to get home. We figure we'll meet up with Jon and Brandy and leave the house by 5, then grab dinner somewhere on our way to the airport. We just hope the kids get some sleep on the plane...

When are you going? Where do you get to stay? Insane or not it sounds like a fun time!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We had a good week for Mickey Mail!



We got our Magic Bands over the weekend, and out MDE tags showed up on Monday.


We are so excited!

In other Disney planning news, we have been watching the information about the Festival of the Arts at Epcot.

We really love food and wine and are looking forward to a different Epcot Festival.

One surprising thing about it to me is how much food there is as part of it. Melissa's been digging into the menus, and there looks to be some good stuff.

My mouth is watering and I'm getting hungry and it's another hour until lunch.

Here's a few of the things that sounded good:

Agave Pork Belly: Pork Belly caramelized with Agave atop Pumpkin Seed Pesto Lentil Salad

Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich Funnel Cake with Peanut Butter Ice Cream, Marshmallow Cream and Raspberry Glaze

Crème de Brie en Petit Pain: Warm Creamy Brie in a House-made Bread Bowl

Pan-Seared Scallop: with Chorizo, Roasted Red Pepper Coulis and a Parmesan Crisp

Musical Float: Layered Strawberry, Lemonade, and Blue Raspberry Slushy with Vanilla Ice Cream and White Chocolate

The merch looks really cute too, I love all the Figment stuff.


Aww yeah, I love figment. It should be a great time, and having the festival should make up for some of the construction and closures at Epcot.

It should be fun!

And we're down to just 21 days!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

That pork belly looks amazing!

 

[Wood Nymph]

In other Disney planning news, we have been watching the information about the Festival of the Arts at Epcot.

We really love food and wine and are looking forward to a different Epcot Festival.

We walked through the World Showcase today (Jan 15th) and food booths are up and so are the Christmas decorations. I have a feeling that the decorations will be taken down overnight, tonight or tomorrow.

They seem to add more food every year. I think a lot of people like them. We are missing the festival by one day, since we are going home tomorrow.

 

[Leesha.Monster]

When are you going? Where do you get to stay? Insane or not it sounds like a fun time!

We’re leaving on Friday Jan 31st, arriving Feb 1st and leaving Feb 4th at the 6:45pm flight home. We’re staying at the beach club and paying OOP since we don’t have any more points left! We decided to try the deluxe dining plan so our trip is pretty much revolving around food and a few rides here and there.
Also, we’re upgrading our tickets to the gold pass with DVC discount when we get there so definitely going to plan another trip again this year!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

That pork belly looks amazing!

Doesn't it? I think we are going to spend more time doing food booths at Epcot this trip than we had previously planned. That's ok, it looks like it will be worth it!

We walked through the World Showcase today (Jan 15th) and food booths are up and so are the Christmas decorations. I have a feeling that the decorations will be taken down overnight, tonight or tomorrow.

They seem to add more food every year. I think a lot of people like them. We are missing the festival by one day, since we are going home tomorrow.

We often have watched them set up for Food and Wine during our September trips. It is kind of fun to see what's coming, but always a little disappointing when you don't get to see it open. Oh well, hopefully you had a great trip and made it home safely.

We’re leaving on Friday Jan 31st, arriving Feb 1st and leaving Feb 4th at the 6:45pm flight home. We’re staying at the beach club and paying OOP since we don’t have any more points left! We decided to try the deluxe dining plan so our trip is pretty much revolving around food and a few rides here and there.
Also, we’re upgrading our tickets to the gold pass with DVC discount when we get there so definitely going to plan another trip again this year!

That's great! We were planning a Deluxe dining trip before we bought DVC, and saw how it can quickly become the central focus of the trip. Hopefully you get to try lots of great dining options and maybe come up with a few favorites for your future trips. That week should be perfect crowd-wise, so enjoy and eat some more meals to make up for the people who aren't there.
The Gold APs should be neat too, but that does lead to more trips! We always look at then upgrading to Premier APs, but that's a tough jump to justify, even with APs in California too.
Have a great time, starting in just over 2 weeks!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Today is our single digit day!


The trip is so close, since we actually leave a week from Wednesday.

I have noticed some changes in park hours were made recently. As expected, HS is opening earlier, likely to accomodate Rise of the Resistance crowds. Currently it is showing 8AM openings for our whole trip, but it might move even earlier.


We decided to do some rearranging on our schedule to have a day early in our trip where we can be there at rope drop and try our luck at getting a boarding group. It mwans we dropped some MK fastpasses, but hopefully we can get them at other times in the trip. We also were able to move up our Droid Depot reservation so that the kids can do it earlier in the trip and have them to play with longer, since it was originally scheduled for our last full day. We are still kind of questioning if we should do Droid Depot, but both kids are pretty excited about it and I'm sure the adults will enjoy helping out.


The droids are pretty adorable and I'm sure the kids will enjoy playing with them in the room.

Yeah, and with two of them we might get to play a bit too.

It also appears that MK will be staying open later than initially planned, with it closing at 9 or 10 on some nights that had been scheduled for 8:00. I figure that will at least help us with transportation options in the evenings.

Yes and give us more time to play too.

Yeah, it might be fun to hop over from the hotel some evening after other fun.

We are really looking forward to the food on the trip, especially the things that will be new to us. I've seen some recent good reviews of Yachtsman, and we are starting out there on our first full day. We also finally get to try Sanaa and Art Smith's Homecomin, which should be great (although very different from each other). Then there's Topolino, which will be a great way to round out the trip.

I can't wait for the food! All that's left is to pack. Paul is slacking and hasn't even gotten the suitcases out yet

It is funny, we were out of town this weekend but fortunately will be home until we leave for Disney, so we hope to be all packed this weekend. We both have been planning and stashing things away though, so it should come together pretty quickly.

Yeah we didn't have a whole year to loose our Disney stuff.

That's true. The big question now is how long till the next one... We'll have to schedule a planning meeting during our trip!

 

[Wood Nymph]

The trip is so close, since we actually leave a week from Wednesday.

I hope the weather warms up a little for you. Our daughter and her family leave on Thursday and I think it will be a little chilly for swimming. February can be very unpredictable.

I have noticed some changes in park hours were made recently. As expected, HS is opening earlier, likely to accomodate Rise of the Resistance crowds. Currently it is showing 8AM openings for our whole trip, but it might move even earlier.

Disney keeps changing the DHS hours at the last minute. It messed up our January trip plans. I hope they don't make it earlier than 8am for you. With the time zone difference that 8am is really early.

It means we dropped some MK fastpasses, but hopefully we can get them at other times in the trip.

We hadn't made any fps for DHS for our March trip. But once they changed the fp tiers and added Millineum Falcon, I dropped AK fps and made DHS.

The droids are pretty adorable and I'm sure the kids will enjoy playing with them in the room.

The likds will love playing with them. They are adorable.

The big question now is how long till the next one... We'll have to schedule a planning meeting during our trip!

I'm not used to you saying that you don't know when and where your next trip will be. Will you be able to use your DVC points?

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I hope the weather warms up a little for you. Our daughter and her family leave on Thursday and I think it will be a little chilly for swimming. February can be very unpredictable.

We still can't wrap our heads around the concept of it being chilly at Disney. We are packing our sweatshirts and jackets, and are kind of looking forward to it. I'm sure the kids will want to try to swim at some point, but it probably won't be as big a part of the trip.

Disney keeps changing the DHS hours at the last minute. It messed up our January trip plans. I hope they don't make it earlier than 8am for you. With the time zone difference that 8am is really early.

Yeah, we considered not doing rope drop at HS, but we want to give it a shot and see if we can make Rise of the Resistance. We will see, at least we'll get our Droids earlier.

We hadn't made any fps for DHS for our March trip. But once they changed the fp tiers and added Millineum Falcon, I dropped AK fps and made DHS.

Yeah, sounds like a good plan.

The kids will love playing with them. They are adorable.

I am actually kind of surprised we didn't wind up waiting to try to do it last time, or at least buying a pre-made one. Both kids want them this time so they have something to look forward to.

I'm not used to you saying that you don't know when and where your next trip will be. Will you be able to use your DVC points?

We will make a 2021 trip, we just don't know whether we will want to book something for February or wait for September. We will likely book it as another 10 day 9 night trip, we just have to figure out which season we prefer. We don't have to decide until our 11 month window opens in March 2020 for a potential February 2021 trip.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Was at Teppan Edo yesterday. Filet now $29 a la carte or $39 with salad, noodles, rice, and vegetables. So that is what they meant by the new menu format.

BTW I am working in Orlando through end of Feb., so I will be around during parts of your trip. Doing park days some weekend times.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Was at Teppan Edo yesterday. Filet now $29 a la carte or $39 with salad, noodles, rice, and vegetables. So that is what they meant by the new menu format.

BTW I am working in Orlando through end of Feb., so I will be around during parts of your trip. Doing park days some weekend times.

Thank You! The part about $39 as a meal with salad, noodles, etc. is missing from all the info online, and is exactly what we were looking and hoping for. We’re looking forward to it, and even more so knowing we can order what we want and not pay double.

That’s cool you will be there when we are. Say hello if you see us around. Looks like we will be in HS on Saturday Feb 8th and MK on Sunday the 9th, with dinner at Artist Point and a Fireworks Cruise.

 

[Cloe Colton]

Your trip is coming up so soon! Just an aside about the upgraded refillable mugs, when DH and I were there in December we only saw the Skyliner one at CBR and didn't see any options at the Wilderness Lodge (DH upgraded during our one night stay at CBR and I fully regretted not getting the upgraded mug and was going to try to switch during our stay at Boulder Ridge). Hopefully they will have some though because they are super nice!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Your trip is coming up so soon! Just an aside about the upgraded refillable mugs, when DH and I were there in December we only saw the Skyliner one at CBR and didn't see any options at the Wilderness Lodge (DH upgraded during our one night stay at CBR and I fully regretted not getting the upgraded mug and was going to try to switch during our stay at Boulder Ridge). Hopefully they will have some though because they are super nice!

Yes, we fly out a week from tonight. That is going to be a crazy day. We have traveled around to get the mug we wanted before, but having to go to CBR or another Skyliner resort might be enough effort to push is into just getting the regular mugs at WL. They are neat though...

Thanks for thinking of us, and we'll let you know what we find!