"Thanks, Aunt Marian": Trip of a Lifetime in February 2016 PTR

[sara1215]

I'm not a great writer and I'm new here, so I don't know if a lot of people want to read a pre-trip report from someone they don't know. But I think this would be a great place to keep some of my plans all together (aside from the documents and spreadsheets I've already created). It seems as though planning a Disney trip is the perfect exercise for the list-obsessed people such as myself. I don't know why I haven't done it sooner--oh yeah, the whole money thing.

Which brings me to the whole reason we are able to take this trip in the first place. Thanks to the extreme generosity of my childless Aunt Marian (and her husband John), we are able to take "Disney trip" off of the 5-year bucket list and move it into the immediate reality. I don't know if I'll ever be able to express to her how grateful I am that she has given my family this opportunity, an opportunity I thought we might never have.

So I guess the first order of business is to introduce you to myself and my family.

I'm Sara, I'm 36 years old. I work as a registered nurse in a neurosurgical ICU. I love to read, eat, play the piano, and I don't know what my life would be without the internet. Google, Pinterest, Twitter, I love it all.

My husband is Nick, he's 35. He works as a hairdresser. He is creative and artistic (the exact opposite of me). He's not entirely crazy about this Disney trip but is humoring me. And I believe with all my heart that he will have a good time once we get there.

Nick and I will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary at the end of February. We actually honeymooned in Orlando. We went to MGM Studios for one day and I have very few memories of the trip. We did not go to Magic Kingdom (we didn't really have the money) and I wish we had. Here is a picture of our family.

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Those two little cutiepies in the picture are our dear daughters. The oldest is Ainsley. She will be nearly 7 by the time we take this trip. (Seven! That's impossible! She was just born the other day!) Anyway, she is headed into first grade. Smart as a whip. Makes me proud all the time. Below is a picture of her participating in her major activity of the summer, a small garden that her Girl Scout troop adopted at our local zoo.




Our youngest daughter is Raegan. She will turn 4 right before we take our Disney trip. She is a ball of energy and sass! One of her nicknames is Stinkerbell, because she gets in so much trouble and is so cute doing it! She is starting preschool in the fall and is really looking forward to it. She is always on the move, but never fails to stop and pose for a picture, such as this diva shot.



Our girls have been Disney princess lovers from a very young age and would be hard pressed to choose a favorite, although I think they would say Elsa. They also loves other Disney movies. Ainsley's favorites among those being Lady & the Tramp and Mary Poppins, and Raegan's current obsession is Big Hero 6. One of their favorite pasttimes is dressing up in their myriad of princess dresses and they have worn these dresses all over town. This is a picture from about two years ago of my two Cinderellas.



Finally, the last participant in our trip is Hayley. She's 20 years old and still figuring life out, as 20 year olds should be doing. She's a great friend of the family and has been intertwined throughout our lives in so many ways. My MIL and Hayley's mother are best friends. When Hayley was a baby, my husband (as a teen) was her babysitter. When DH and I got married, Hayley was our flower girl. When our kids were born, Hayley became one of their favorite babysitters. Hayley was lucky to have her trip of a lifetime to Disney with her mom after she graduated high school. She is coming on this trip to serve as sort of a guide/nanny/3rd pair of hands with 2 crazy kids/companion. I can't wait for her to join us. Here's a shot of her and Ainsley a few years ago.



It's getting late and I'm going to sleep. Next post I'll start plugging in some of my current plans, of course subject to change...

 

[MataHari22]

Hi, Sara! to the DISboards. Your little girls are so cute.

How wonderful and generous of your Auntie to make your Disney trip possible. I look forward to reading about your plans, when you're going and where you'll be staying.

 

[skier_pete]

Hi there and welcome. I love joining in on newbie's TRs because it is so fun to get to see the place with fresh eyes. Though we love WDW, we sometimes get a bit cynical about certain things...that first trip is so very very special, and especially when you think it might be your only trip. (Never say Never my friend!) Looking forward to hearing your details as they unfold.

Are you heading down for the President's Week break? Can't tell where you are from in your post.

 

[sara1215]

Hi there and welcome. I love joining in on newbie's TRs because it is so fun to get to see the place with fresh eyes. Though we love WDW, we sometimes get a bit cynical about certain things...that first trip is so very very special, and especially when you think it might be your only trip. (Never say Never my friend!) Looking forward to hearing your details as they unfold.

Are you heading down for the President's Week break? Can't tell where you are from in your post.

Oops, I neglected that part! We are in Michigan. Our trip is February 1-6. Apparently a low crowd time.

 

[sara1215]

Preliminary Plans

We have booked a family suite at All-Star Music. I spent a long time looking at multiple resorts. I was pretty certain I wanted to stay on property, simply to avoid the hassle of renting a car, driving, paying for parking, etc. I also wanted to maximize the amount of money in my budget, so I really only looked at value resorts. My reasoning was that we will probably only use the room for sleeping and pool for swimming (if its warm enough). The more I looked at the value suites, I realized many of them only have double beds. DH and I have a California King (he is 6'5") and we definitely like to have our space when we are sleeping. Additionally, I was pretty sure my two girls would not share a bed and I didn't really want to bring an air bed. I became discouraged when the only rooms I found with king beds were looking pretty expensive. Then I discovered the family suites and the angels were singing! Two rooms, space for DH and I, space for the kids. Looking at the photos, I loved the decor (Disney-fied but not too much, from what I can tell). Then I found a photo of the piano pool. It couldn't be more perfect as I have been an amateur pianist for the majority of my life. Now that we have a 5th person coming along, the family suite is even more perfect for us.

Yet another way it seems as if Disney is going to simplify my life is with this fantastic dining plan (if only we were going when it was free!) One of my biggest frustrations with being a mom is trying to figure out what to eat, keeping everyone happy, and then sitting down to food that is not the temperature I want it to be. Moms, you know what I mean! So this idea of having someone else cook for me, ordering food I want to eat, and having ice cream every day if I want is super appealing. The diet goes on hold for Disney--calories don't count, right? So I chose the dining plan with 1 snack, 1 QS, and 1 TS. I feel like that will be perfect for us.

I've had a Pinterest board for a possible Disney trip for quite some time and I began looking through all the pins again. Every day I learn something new and come across some new idea. I have a master list in my Google Docs of things I want to do or ideas I have for the trip. I can't wait to see them all come to pass. Through Pinterest, I found out about Memory Maker. Another way Disney thinks of moms--you know, because we are always taking the pictures and never in the pictures. Trip of a lifetime means I'm paying for someone else to take my picture. I don't have to miss my daughters' magical moments because I was too busy taking a picture. I don't have to say--"hey wait, do that again so I can get a picture". I don't have to worry about forgetting my camera or not having enough space on my phone. I'll take tons of photos too, but I am really looking forward to some guaranteed memories that include my whole family!

I have so many more things planned in my mind. Tonight I looked at crowd calendars (as recommended to me on DisBoards) and mapped out a tentative schedule for the week. I plugged in dining reservations I want to try to get. And I'm pretty happy with how it's looking so far. I'm able to make my ADRs in a couple weeks, so I'll probably go over it a few times before then.

These are my current thoughts

Monday we arrive in the evening so we'll eat at the hotel and settle in

Tuesday--Magic Kingdom
Breakfast with Winnie the Pooh at Crystal Palace
Lunch at Tony's Town Square (DD1 loves Lady & the Tramp)
Afternoon break after the parade with dinner at the hotel
Come back to MK for fireworks

Wednesday--Epcot
Breakfast at Chef Mickey's
Dinner for DH and I at San Angel Inn while kids go back to the hotel with Hayley
Fireworks after dinner for just DH and I

Thursday--Hollywood Studios
Breakfast at Hollywood & Vine with Sophia and others
Dinner at 1900 Park for Cinderella's Happily Ever After

Friday--Animal Kingdom
Breakfast at 'Ohana with Lilo and Stitch
Dinner at Tusker House with Donald

Saturday--back to the Magic Kingdom
departure day breakfast at hotel
Lunch at Be Our Guest
fly out in the evening

 

[MataHari22]

The value family suites seem like a great deal. Sounds perfect for you guys.

Not sure if you've come across this Disney Dining Plan Tool yet. It can help you maximize the value of your DDP.

DDP:
http://www.distripplanner.com

In 2013, I took a friend of mine to WDW and she talked me out of getting Memory Maker, she said it was too expensive and I shouldn't spend the money on it and we could just pass the camera back and forth and take photos of each other. Well, I didn't know that she could not take a decent photo. I'm not even exaggerating, at HS I asked her to take a photo of me in front of the NYC background and when I took the camera back and looked at the photo, I was no where in the picture. I mean she didn't just cut off my head, or something, I was not even in the photo! We laugh about it now, but I was not happy that I don't have any nice photos of me that trip. Needless to say, I bought MM for our trip last year, and I thought it was great. I made some awesome scrapbooks from shutterfly with the photos. The magic shots were very cool, too. Last year, I never got a shot with Olaf, or Sebastian and I'm hoping to get one this year. Have you seen this site? It shows all the shots.

Magic Shots:
http://capturingmagic.me/photopass-magic-shots

Your plans look good. We always do Crystal Palace for breakfast and Tony's for lunch or dinner.

 

[sara1215]

I'll check out the site for Magic shots. Thanks for the tip. I've seen the dining plan site and I hope to use that to figure out what I'll have to pay out of pocket or which reservations to drop.

 

[sara1215]

What to write today?

I'm have about three weeks until I can make ADRs. So I feel like I'm kind of in a holding pattern. That doesn't mean I'm still not obsessively pinning things and reading other people's trip reports.

One good thing that happened--I got a heck of a deal on airline tickets. At least I think so, anyway. I don't fly often so I'm not sure how awesome a deal it is. But I bought and paid for my tickets last Tuesday. Then I went to check on Southwest later in the week to see if there was any price differences. Someone suggested I do that periodically to see if I could get a better deal. Well, as it turns out, I must have bought at the right time. Because the price now, same flights and everything, is $400 MORE than I paid. Hallelujah! Another sign this trip is meant to be, in my opinion.

I've also been hitting up the clearance racks for Disney clothes for the kids. I've never been one to buy too much character stuff for them, but now that we are going to Disney, that's a whole new story. I've gotten quite a few cute t-shirts at Walmart, Target, Meijer for the end-of-summer sales. I just told the kids they are for next year and hid them away in my closet. They should be about set to go for princess and Mickey themed shirts. I figure the more of that stuff I buy ahead of time, the more money I'm saving in souvenirs at Disney. I also got DH a couple shirts--one with Olaf on it and another one with Mr. Incredible. I hope he likes them!

I have a lot of other plans rolling around in my mind that I really need to solidify. My current thoughts are centering on when and how to tell the kids. I want to do a fun scavenger hunt type thing about a month before we go, so I have time to narrow down all my ideas. I'm also thinking about decorating our room windows, our magic bands, and some type of Mickey/Tinkerbell gifts for the kids at the hotel. Lots to do yet! Thank goodness school will be starting soon and I'll have a few kidless hours to really concentrate on those things.

 

[skier_pete]

A few comments:

You have a lot of character meals, and that makes sense to a degree with your kids. However, remember the dining plan only give you ONE Table Service meal a night of your stay, and you have some other meals thrown in there as well. you are going to end up paying a LOT of money for these meals, and you might find yourself getting sick of character buffets. Even the breakfasts run $30 a person, and not much less for the kids. (It's a LOT of food - and not always good food.) I would suggest you consider pairing down to 3 or 4. For instance, you have both Tusker House AND Chef Mickeys. Both are the classic Disney Characters though slightly different (no Minnie at Tusker House), but I would say choose one or the other. (And I personally would choose Tusker House as the food at CM is pretty bad.) Also, maybe you are set on 1900 Park Fare, but if you want to catch the nighttime show at Hollywood studios that night, might be tricky to get there and back. Perhaps consider on your Epcot day doing Akershus for breakfast instead of Chef Mickeys. FIVE princesses instead of just one, and cuts down on the travel. (Remember, traveling from park to a resort can be 30-60 minute trip, so to eat a meal at a resort could cost you 3 hours or more of park time!) If you are set on the Cinderella one IS very good (the step-sisters are hilarious and the food's pretty good) but don't forget the transit time!

 

[MataHari22]

That's how I'm feeling, but in a holding pattern until I can make my FP+.

Good idea to pick up the kids some character shirts at Walmart and Target. So much cheaper than at the parks.

With the character meals the PP has a point. If you did Akershus instead of Chef Mickey's you would also already be in Epcot, and that would save a lot of time traveling. Getting in more park time at Epcot.

The scavenger hunt sounds like a fun idea. Plenty of creative things you could do with that.

 

[sara1215]

A few comments:

You have a lot of character meals, and that makes sense to a degree with your kids. However, remember the dining plan only give you ONE Table Service meal a night of your stay, and you have some other meals thrown in there as well. you are going to end up paying a LOT of money for these meals, and you might find yourself getting sick of character buffets. Even the breakfasts run $30 a person, and not much less for the kids. (It's a LOT of food - and not always good food.) I would suggest you consider pairing down to 3 or 4. For instance, you have both Tusker House AND Chef Mickeys. Both are the classic Disney Characters though slightly different (no Minnie at Tusker House), but I would say choose one or the other. (And I personally would choose Tusker House as the food at CM is pretty bad.) Also, maybe you are set on 1900 Park Fare, but if you want to catch the nighttime show at Hollywood studios that night, might be tricky to get there and back. Perhaps consider on your Epcot day doing Akershus for breakfast instead of Chef Mickeys. FIVE princesses instead of just one, and cuts down on the travel. (Remember, traveling from park to a resort can be 30-60 minute trip, so to eat a meal at a resort could cost you 3 hours or more of park time!) If you are set on the Cinderella one IS very good (the step-sisters are hilarious and the food's pretty good) but don't forget the transit time!

Thank you, this is great advice! I thought I would likely pare it down to one TS per day, once I'm able to get in and actually do the ADRs and see what I can get. What kind of night show do they have at HS? I must have missed reading about that. And your info about the transit time is very helpful to me.

 

[MataHari22]

Fantasmic! is at Hollywood Studios.

 

[skier_pete]

Thank you, this is great advice! I thought I would likely pare it down to one TS per day, once I'm able to get in and actually do the ADRs and see what I can get. What kind of night show do they have at HS? I must have missed reading about that. And your info about the transit time is very helpful to me.

Fantasmic is the nighttime show at Hollywood studios. It's a great show, but may be too intense for the young kids, it really depends on their personality. (We took our daughter when she was 5, and she won't go back ever since - but she is rather timid.)

Admittedly if you are not going to worry about seeing Fantasmic, you'll probably be done in DHS pretty quickly. There's not a ton of stuff there for the under five set, and with stuff closing recently for the rumored re-do of the park, there may be even less by February.

In general, transport around WDW from a park to a resort isn't too bad. To get from DHS to the Grand Floridian where 1900 Park Fare is probably a 20 minute bus ride, but you also have to factor in waiting for the bus. If you are lucky, that might be 5 minutes, but if the timing is wrong - it could be 20 minutes or more. (Generally the bus system is pretty good, but every once in a while the timing of the busses seems to be way off and you wait extra long.) We usually leave 45 minutes for transit time to be safe. The worst is if you want to go from your resort to another resort, because their are no resort direct busses. Some locations aren't too bad. So if you did end up sticking with Chef Mickey's for breakfast, you would have to take the bus to MK, and then either Walk to the Contemporary (probably 10 minute walk) or go to the monorail and take the resort monorail (only about a 2 minute monorail ride - but again would depend a bit on the wait for the monorail, which wouldn't normally be more than 10 minutes. To get to Epcot from CM wouldn't be too bad, but would take two monorail rides (1 to the TTC and a change to the Epcot line), probably 20-30 minutes. This is another reason I suggested what I did, if you stick to in-park character meals, you avoid all that extra traveling. CM is extremely popular because it has the "fab 5" (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Pluto), but Tusker House will get you Mickey, Goofy, Donald and Daisy. Better off to go with Tusker House (lunch/dinner is wonderful with a mix of some standard food for the kids and some Asian/indian fare for the adults if you like to try things a little out of the ordinary). If you hit the character connection @ Epcot, you can get Minnie and Pluto there. (Or if you stick with Ohana - but remember the issue doing there - especially on an AK day - to do breakfast at Ohana, you have to ride the bus to MK, and then the monorail or boat to the Poly - a good 30-40 minute transport. Then to AK from Poly will be a bus ride, which will be fairly long (30 minutes).) Just all stuff to factor in, when you do the character meals in the parks, you don't have that transit time. (Or you can shorten it by taking a taxi - we will often do that if we are trying to go resort to resort.)

BTW - Crystal Palace is our favorite Buffet for the food. We've done it every trip but now we don't have the DDP so will miss it. (Plus DD is 12 and a bit old for Pooh & Friends.)

 

[sara1215]

Sounds like I need to get a map out and get more familiar with the layout of where things are. Another thing to pass the time while I plan! And I'm loving all the advice. So appreciative. Since I really have no idea what I'm doing!!

 

[skier_pete]

Sounds like I need to get a map out and get more familiar with the layout of where things are. Another thing to pass the time while I plan! And I'm loving all the advice. So appreciative. Since I really have no idea what I'm doing!!

No problem. Hopefully my advice is helpful. Planning a Disney trip can be quite a task for a first timer. It's really unlike any other type of vacation! In fact, it's especially tricky to find the right balance between not planning enough, and OVER planning. To me, you DO need to plan, but if you try and time every minute of every day, you could just end up miserable. It's important to have your park days and your ADRs planned, and even of course those key FastPasses, but once you are there, you need to allow yourselves to go with the flow a bit. I always advise to pick the top 5 or 6 things you want to get in each day, and via FP+, rope drop or just plain old standby line make sure to take the time for those. Then everything else. By going in early February, the crowds should be low enough that you should be able to get a lot in, but there is simply no way to see it all in a single trip. So, it's best not to try and instead just focus on those main things you DO want to see. IF you have a good enough time, you'll find a way to go back again someday.

 

[MataHari22]

Sounds like I need to get a map out and get more familiar with the layout of where things are. Another thing to pass the time while I plan! And I'm loving all the advice. So appreciative. Since I really have no idea what I'm doing!!

I always thought the worst park for navigation, was Holllywood Studios. That's the only park I still have to break out a map sometimes. Maybe this year, I finally won't have to.

 

[sara1215]

Less then two weeks until I can do ADRs. I'm passing the time by going shopping. May not be so good for my bank account! I went to Kohl's last night to look at the Lauren Conrad Disney clothes. Didn't end up buying anything for myself but got more stuff for the kids. Adorable Minnie-themed sundresses. And I could have bought a lot more. They really had some cute stuff.



I've been reading my Birnbaum guide after the kids have gone to bed. I need to get out a highlighter and mark the attractions I want to hit at each park so I can have a mental game plan when we get there. I don't want DH to realize how planned out I have it!

I also got my Incredibles vacation pack in the mail today. I love how personalized Disney made it with our name on the cover and all our info inside. Just another touch of great customer service. The rest of the world should take lessons from them.

 

[MataHari22]

I didn't know Khol's had Disney clothes, only kids? I've only been to that store twice, we have one about 35 miles away. Don't get up there often.

I got the Birnbaum's guide years ago and then bought it again for my 2013 trip because it'd had been so many years between those trips. When I was really missing WDW I would always look through the book and wish I was there. Lol.

 

[sara1215]

I didn't know Khol's had Disney clothes, only kids? I've only been to that store twice, we have one about 35 miles away. Don't get up there often.

I got the Birnbaum's guide years ago and then bought it again for my 2013 trip because it'd had been so many years between those trips. When I was really missing WDW I would always look through the book and wish I was there. Lol.

They do have a few adult styles as well. I tried some on and wasn't crazy about how they looked on me. They are geared more to 20somethings, I think. Very cute though.

http://www.kohls.com/catalog/womens...thing.jsp?CN=4294720878+4294703056+4294719810

 

[MataHari22]

Thanks, I'll check out the link.