The Biggest, Bestest, Most Amazingest Trip Ever...Is Being Planned *UPDATE 9/18*

[Denovagirl]

Good catch on the dates!

 

[ariel1025]

Good catch on the dates!

Thanks. The Hubs never would have let me live it down if I had us at MK on a holiday

 

[ariel1025]

Well, this happened yesterday



I have been incredibly blessed to be able to be home with each of my kiddos since the day they were born. So I needed a distraction in a big way until pick-up time. And what better distraction is there than disney? #theanswerisnone Needless to say some big time Disney planning went down at my house!

First, I came home to find this in the mailbox


Yay for Disney mail!

Then I opened my email to find that Disney had gotten back to me on some answers I had concerning the Disney Vacation Account. Since we are DVC I wanted to see if purchasing the dining plan individually instead of as part of a package would still count towards the $20 for every $1,000 spent bonus. The answer was yes . I also inquired as to if the Memory Maker advanced purchase and Fireworks Dessert Party counted towards the bonus. Thankfully, the answer was yes to both of those as well. With that information saved in my archives (just in case) I went ahead and opened an account. As we all know, I'm never opposed to free money, and since I need to save that money anyway it seemed like a no brainer!

After all that fun stuff I took a good look at our vacation plans and made some choices and adjustments.

Day Four: Animal Kingdom Day

Usually our second park day is Epcot and our fourth park day is Animal Kingdom. However, after looking at our plans I noticed that we would be going to Animal Kingdom park on the same day we checked out of Animal Kingdom Lodge and into the Grand Floridian Villas. Therefore, it seemed more logical to switch the Epcot and Animal Kingdom days around. That way we can just take the monorail to GFV after leaving Epcot for the day And now that you have the backstory about the change you didn't even realize was a change here are the plans.


Animal Kingdom Park, Anniversary Trip, 2009

Touring plans is guesstimating that the park will open at 9:00 a.m. and close at 7:00 p.m. Currently there aren't any parades or night shows, so it will just be the showtimes for Lion King and Nemo that we will need to work into our schedule.

The plan is to get up and have breakfast at either Tusker House (pre-rope drop) or Boma (early enough to arrive at the park by opening).

We tend to treat Animal Kingdom as a pretty laid back park, so the morning will be spent enjoying the atmosphere and possibly grabbing one of the two shows.

Lunch will be at Flame Tree BBQ. I have wanted to eat here for years, but it has always been under renovation when we've visited. I am crossing all my fingers that isn't the case this year. The menu is right up our alley and it seems like such a great value for a quick service credit!

Since the park closes up early we are planning to stay in the park until closing time.

Dinner will either be Tusker House or Yak and Yeti or back at the Mara.


Best dessert ever at Yak and Yeti, Anniversary Trip, 2009

That evening we are hoping to enjoy some pool time. That was one of the biggest downers for the kids when we went in January. Too cold to go to swim. Their poor faces looked so sad every time we passed by the pool, so I want to make sure to schedule several swimming opportunities for them this vacation.

With all that said I'm expecting it to be an easygoing and perhaps early night in the room. Sounds like the perfect day to get some laundry done from the previous 3 days.

Fastpass options for the day will be Everest, Lion King, Nemo, Kali River Rapids, It's Tough To Be a Bug, Safari and Character Outpost. Shouldn't be too hard to narrow down to 3.


Tumble Monkies at the Lion King Show, Honeymoon, 2008

 

[Denovagirl]

Yay for flame tree! They just finished a massive refurb there so it should definitely not be down again during your trip! We thought it was pretty good and agree it's a good use of a QS credit!

Plans sound great, as usual!

 

[ariel1025]

::Tap, tap:: Anybody out there?

Sorry for the long hiatus. School started for my oldest, Hubs has been traveling a lot for work, youngest started Gymboree and swimming lessons, family was in town for 10 days, and Ellie celebrated her 2nd birthday complete with a Disney influenced party. Basically it has been quite busy around here.

Oh, and in the midst of all of that there have been some major changes on the trip front. I'm talking people, dates, restaurants, hotels, parks...BIG changes. So, let's just get to it. Erase basically everything you've read on the previous 2 pages Here is what the plan looks like now.

June 4: Flight, Hotel (Fairfield Inn & suites, Springhill Suites or Renaissance), Aquatica
June 5: SeaWorld (Happy Birthday, Grandma!)
June 6: Boardwalk Villas, Downtown Disney, Boardwalk night
June 7: Magic Kingdom
June 8: Animal Kingdom
June 9: Sleep late, Watercraft Rentals, Tea Party, Dinner show or fancy dinner
June 10: Epcot
June 11: Hollywood Studios (possible Star Wars Weekend?)
June 12: Sleep late, Typhoon Lagoon
June 13: Epcot
June 14: Hollywood Studios
June 15: Sleep late, repeat group favorite park or Blizzard Beach
June 16: Magic Kingdom
June 17: The day we do not discuss!

And there we have it. Be back soon to discuss in great detail. Happy Monday all!


Happy 2nd Birthday, sweet girl!

 

[ariel1025]

Let's get back into the planning, shall we?

First up, we have some new people coming along on this adventure with us


My parents aka Grandma and Pa-pa!

They went with us on our big Magic Kingdom/Disney Magic/Dark Side vacation back in 2012. There was a little bit of back and forth, but while they were here for Ellie's birthday party they confirmed that they would be joining. We are all so excited to vacation with them again. Especially the kids!

However, new travel mates also means additional opinions on what we should do and where we should do it. If I'm being 100% honest it does stress the planner side of me out, but it's more than worth it to share these memories with them. They live over 700 miles away from us, so their time with the kids is very limited. Anyway, my point is that them join along is what brought along some changes.

We actually had a full morning of vacation discussion over breakfast while they were here (be still my planning loving heart!). Many, many, many ideas were tossed around such as a day at the beach, a day at Universal/IOA, less time at Disney (never an option to me!), more time at Disney etc etc etc. In the end it was decided to add two nights at a SeaWorld hotel prior to arriving at Disney so that my Mom could visit her favorite park in the world. Please don't ask me how I'm her child, because I really don't know. Kidding!

As I mentioned, we did a "dark side" portion to our 2012 vacation with them, which included SeaWorld and it was actually quite fun. Candi would disagree, as it is his least favorite park ever, but he loves me, and he knows it makes my Mom happy, and he knows the kids will enjoy it, so he kept his lips sealed about it. #hellorunonsentence

We did discuss whether we should go at the start of our trip, at the end of the trip or just leave the World for a day to go. I'm not a big fan of leaving the Disney bubble once I'm there, and since my parents aren't DVC it will actually help their price tag a bit to stay off-site for a couple nights, so that middle of the trip idea was nixed pretty quickly. Then we decided that having the on-site airline check-in and (un)Magical Express transportation option was worth leaving directly from Disney to the airport. So, that left us with doing the two SeaWorld nights at the start of the trip.

Now, we just need to decide if we want to book somebody like Mears to transport us from MCO to our SeaWorld hotel, just get a cab when we arrive or book a rental car for a couple days. What would you guys recommend?

We are also trying to decide on a hotel option. We know for sure we want to book one of their on-site hotels due to the benefits of staying there (quick queue pass, ongoing shuttle to the park, free dining plan option etc). I think we are narrowed down to either Springhill Suites or Fairfield Inn and Suites. We really like the Renaissance, but the other two offer free breakfast and don't charge a nightly fee of $22 + tax per night like the Renaissance does, so it's pretty much out of the running. Do you guys have any experience with either of the other two?

And then, of course, we still need to book our flights so that we can make an arrival day plan. If we arrive early enough we will head over to Aquatica for a few hours and have dinner there with the free dining pass. But if we can't get in until late we will need to look for an alternative dinner option. Unfortunately, it will probably be November before we can even see itinerary options through Southwest, so that will be up in the air for a while...