The Ever Changing Resort PTR, June 2016...Completed!

[ariane37]

Ugh, for whatever reason it won't let me quote today! Anyway I hope you're feeling better; Ricky's been having what I assumed were sinus/allergy issues since Friday - congestion, super bad cough that keeps him up at night. He even missed his basketball tournament Sat. Finally took him to the Dr. today and she said a virus so we'll see

So what negative stuff have you heard about the nighttime safari? I haven't heard anything but then again I haven't really been looking. Is it hard to see? Not any different from during the day? Kind of stinks, I was looking forward to this in Nov.

I LOVE your hand-written list on paper!! Nice and old school lol! That's how I am and I have, already, about 7 different hand-written lists going for our trip

 

[ArielSRL]

Ugh, for whatever reason it won't let me quote today! Anyway I hope you're feeling better; Ricky's been having what I assumed were sinus/allergy issues since Friday - congestion, super bad cough that keeps him up at night. He even missed his basketball tournament Sat. Finally took him to the Dr. today and she said a virus so we'll see

Yes I'm doing better, thank you. Still have the allergy/sinus going on but the stomach part was a 24 hour thing, I suppose. Sorry to hear about your son. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery!

So what negative stuff have you heard about the nighttime safari? I haven't heard anything but then again I haven't really been looking. Is it hard to see? Not any different from during the day? Kind of stinks, I was looking forward to this in Nov.

That you can't see, the red sunset screens don't provide much light and are behind trees, making it look like the trees are on fire. Real sunset time was suggested as the best time. The good thing for you, is that you have plenty of time to read reviews and see if it improves. Hopefully it has improved, otherwise, what a waste....

I LOVE your hand-written list on paper!! Nice and old school lol! That's how I am and I have, already, about 7 different hand-written lists going for our trip

I definitely like my handwritten notes, grocery list, etc. I have an paper journal type organizer that I have with me at all times! When I write stuff down, it seems to stick more with me, and it's just easier to access and edit, it seems!

 

[Jfsag123]

Other than the allergy/sinus part, I did fine yesterday. As a matter of fact, I over bounced back and ate some pizza, Oreos, tortilla chips, had some wine...lol. I've been trying to be really good here at the end of the year...salads for dinner, no wine during the week, drinking only water....until the trip. But the end of the year is probably the worse time to try to do that just because of all the goodies and the stress! But I digress. LOL

Sorry your son is sick! My boys have been having allergy issues but no stomach problems. Hopefully he will get over it quickly, like me, and we will all be all healthy for Disney!

It is rough going on the trip right after school is over because of being rundown but because of crowds and weather, I feel like we have to go ASAP! We could've even gone earlier but I thought Memorial Day week might be too much. Next year I think we are going the exact same dates!

I'm glad you're better! My son missed school again today, but he's back to his old self now - no fever and no vomiting all day! Now we all just need to hang on for like 11 more days lol. We will probably go similar dates again next year too!

I love all of your most recent purchases, along with your handwritten list! I feel like I should have done that, but I went straight to the ziploc bags. I am very much looking forward to your "this time next week" posts. I think with all of the planning you've done, plus your extra fastpasses, you are going to have an amazing trip!

 

[ArielSRL]

I'm glad you're better! My son missed school again today, but he's back to his old self now - no fever and no vomiting all day! Now we all just need to hang on for like 11 more days lol. We will probably go similar dates again next year too!

I love all of your most recent purchases, along with your handwritten list! I feel like I should have done that, but I went straight to the ziploc bags. I am very much looking forward to your "this time next week" posts. I think with all of the planning you've done, plus your extra fastpasses, you are going to have an amazing trip!

Glad your son is on the mend!! I made one more purchase today. A Nemo backpack for the park! I have a Pooh one but I'm not sure it will really work because there aren't any mesh pockets or anything. I would really prefer a nicer Vera Bradley or something but I don't really have the time to figure out what I want to get it here in time and I really don't want to spend the cash. The Nemo one is so cute with his fins on the sides and it was 12.99 at Target...so I get a discount with my red card and free shipping. Besides the boys will love it! Says it will arrive 6/1. Lets hope so.

 

[Jfsag123]

Glad your son is on the mend!! I made one more purchase today. A Nemo backpack for the park! I have a Pooh one but I'm not sure it will really work because there aren't any mesh pockets or anything. I would really prefer a nicer Vera Bradley or something but I don't really have the time to figure out what I want to get it here in time and I really don't want to spend the cash. The Nemo one is so cute with his fins on the sides and it was 12.99 at Target...so I get a discount with my red card and free shipping. Besides the boys will love it! Says it will arrive 6/1. Lets hope so.

I love/hate that we are at the point at which we have to consider shipping times when ordering new things. Congrats on scoring the Nemo backpack! We got a plain black one from Amazon, but it seems like it will get the job done.

 

[ArielSRL]

I love/hate that we are at the point at which we have to consider shipping times when ordering new things. Congrats on scoring the Nemo backpack! We got a plain black one from Amazon, but it seems like it will get the job done.

Yeh, my mom got a plain black one. I'm one of those weirdos that can't go understated!

 

[Jfsag123]

Yeh, my mom got a plain black one. I'm one of those weirdos that can't go understated!

I like it! My goal is to be able to fully let my Disney freak flag fly one day. Maybe next year.

 

[ArielSRL]

So I never made it to the boards yesterday to start my "this time next week" posts but I'll just do two today! I have to use my work laptop to do them though so I'll pull it out in a bit and start those! Need to put the 2 yr old down for a nap and walk on the treadmill. Be back later with some posts!

 

[ErinF]

I somehow missed a bunch of your posts....sorry about that! Looks like you're in great shape though! End of school year stuff is still eating me for lunch, but at least we've got a 4 day weekend going on right now. I'm trying to start getting things organized, our packing, my house, lists of things to do before we leave. But I'm tired....I have not been sleeping well lately, and I occasionally dream about the trip. And it's not usually good dreams, it's stressful ones, like I realize it's our last day and there's all these things we forgot to do. I think I'm getting in my own head a little!

Even though I'm excited for the trip, I really want to enjoy this last week leading into the vacation. Since the planning and anticipating is almost half the fun, I'm a little bit sad that part is coming to an end. Is that a little weird? The trip will just fly by, so I kind of want time to slow down just a bit right now.

My kids are really getting excited. It's hard for them to think about and anticipate our vacation when it's really far away, so for the last few weeks they've been a lot more into asking about our plans for each day. And my oldest, who has special needs, wants to go RIGHT NOW. He asks every day, multiple times a day if we can get packed up yet. And he states multiple times a day, "I want to go to Disney World right now!" He always has a hard time waiting for the trip, but thank goodness he has such a blast when we're there!!

One week from today we arrive, yippee!!!!

 

[ArielSRL]

I somehow missed a bunch of your posts....sorry about that! Looks like you're in great shape though! End of school year stuff is still eating me for lunch, but at least we've got a 4 day weekend going on right now. I'm trying to start getting things organized, our packing, my house, lists of things to do before we leave. But I'm tired....I have not been sleeping well lately, and I occasionally dream about the trip. And it's not usually good dreams, it's stressful ones, like I realize it's our last day and there's all these things we forgot to do. I think I'm getting in my own head a little!

Even though I'm excited for the trip, I really want to enjoy this last week leading into the vacation. Since the planning and anticipating is almost half the fun, I'm a little bit sad that part is coming to an end. Is that a little weird? The trip will just fly by, so I kind of want time to slow down just a bit right now.

My kids are really getting excited. It's hard for them to think about and anticipate our vacation when it's really far away, so for the last few weeks they've been a lot more into asking about our plans for each day. And my oldest, who has special needs, wants to go RIGHT NOW. He asks every day, multiple times a day if we can get packed up yet. And he states multiple times a day, "I want to go to Disney World right now!" He always has a hard time waiting for the trip, but thank goodness he has such a blast when we're there!!

One week from today we arrive, yippee!!!!

No problem on missing posts! That's funny you say that about sleeping poorly because that's been me for the last few weeks, as well. Some it was probably school stress but I know that a lot of it is Disney planning stress! The anticipation and the anxiety of getting it right and not messing up and not forgetting or making mistakes! But I do love the planning! So much in fact that I majorly revamped and modified our MK arrival plans at about 4pm today! I'm about to post the new plans...

My kids are young enough that they don't really understand enough about the concept of time to truly get when we are going. We have the countdown that my 4 yr old changes everyday and now I'm having him count to how ever many days we have left to help him. But they really don't "get it". But I think they can feel my excitement so they are getting excited too! I can't wait for them to experience it!

One week!!! And we actually leave on Friday! It's getting real!

 

[ArielSRL]

Arrival Day Changes

Well, in true uber-planner form, today at 4pm, when trying to nap, I had an epiphany and revamped/modified our arrival day plans. For several weeks now, I've been questioning the semi-commando touring style I went with. I felt like I planned too much. Especially in the beginning of the trip. I told myself I could change it on the fly if needed but it was going to be hard to do on arrival day with our first FP scheduled for 2:15-3:15, when I am thinking we will get to the park around 3. I kept thinking maybe we could get there earlier so we could have a few minutes to just take it all in...see the castle, feel the magic, do some ear shopping.... However I know that it's a good chance we may not get to the park any earlier as we have to get up, eat breakfast, still drive 2.5 hours, get to SSR, eat lunch, try to get in our room, and get to the park!

So, I modified our 2:15 Under the Sea FP to a 5:20 Winnie the Pooh one. This serves two purposes. One - to give us that much needed "take it all in" time and two - to eliminate a potential long wait for Pooh, which had changed to a predicted 37 minute wait time a few months ago. I had hoped maybe we could pick up a 4th for it but in watching FP availability on touring plans, it didn't seem like it would be easy. Under the Sea seems like it has more late afternoon availability so I'm hoping to grab one for that since it has a 29 minute predicted wait.

In doing that, I had to move a few other things around and took advantage of that to move our CS Cosmic Ray's dinner to later than the 5:45 I originally planned it for. We are going to have the free breakfast at Country Inn & Suites in Lake City, then lunch around 12:30 or 1 at Artist Palette at SSR, so 6:45 or so might be a better dinner time this day.

So here are the screenshots for the plans. Still seems on the heavy side but again, I can adjust as necessary.


One thing I'm a little worried about in all this, is the FoF parade. It starts at 3 in Frontierland and I'm not exactly sure when they start roping off Main Street. I want to be able to get a good first view of the castle and I'm not sure we will be able to. I also want to hit up The Emporium on the left but then that might get us stuck on that side while the parade comes through. Also, if the boys see it, they may insist we watch and I hadn't planned on that at all.

So there ya go....arrival day. I'll come back in a bit on my work computer (it's downstairs) and post the "this time next week" posts. I had hoped to do it earlier but got sidetracked with the changes!

Thanks, in advance for reading!

 

[ArielSRL]

This Time Next Week - Travel Day 6/3

So, snafu in the plans. For some reason my work computer won't connect to the Internet at my house. Over Spring Break, it wouldn't connect wirelessly, but it would with a wired connection. I had it re-imaged and now it won't connect at all. Which stinks because I have all my photos for the "this time next week" posts saved on it. In any case, I re-saved onto my iPad and I'll go that route. Not sure what I'll do for my TR. I guess I'll have to steal the hubs' computer!

Okay, so this is actually in 6 days and it's fairly boring but, my parents will come over around 3 and we'll pack the Suburban we are borrowing from my aunt and uncle:

We plan to hit the road, from the suburbs of Atlanta, around 4:30 and drive about 2.5 hours before stopping for dinner. A couple of possibilities:


We will probably stop for about an hour, to eat and get the boys all set up in pjs. Around 8, we will get back on the road and head to Lake City, FL. We should arrive by 10:30 or 11pm. We will set up here for the night:

We'll settle into bed and hope the anticipation of what lies ahead doesn't keep us up all night!

 

[ArielSRL]

This Time Next Week - Arrival Day 6/4

We plan to get up fairly early, as I doubt AJ and Will will let us sleep in...not that I could anyway! We'll grab some free hot breakfast from the hotel and hopefully be on the road by 9 or 9:30. We should be driving under this sign by noonish:

And arriving at our resort:

We did online check in so hopefully our room will be ready early. Regardless, we will need to pick up some deliveries (groceries, stroller) and maybe do some gift store shopping. We will have lunch here:

After spending a couple hours at the resort, we have plans to hit up:

After soaking up the atmosphere and maybe purchasing some ears, we will hit up Fantasyland for a few rides:





Continued in next post...

 

[ArielSRL]

Arrival Day 6/4 continued


While Dad and AJ hit up this:
Mom, Will, and I will sneak into Tomorrowland for this:

Next up is some dinner:

Then back to FL for:

Then we will head over to Liberty Square:

Next up is Frontierland to catch a show:

Over to Adventureland:


And possibly:

Continued in next post...

 

[ArielSRL]

Arrival Day 6/4 continued

Then back to Frontierland for this:

I'm thinking that will just about do it for arrival day, so we are hoping to grab this back to the front of the park:

Hopefully the CtM and Wishes crowd won't get in our way of getting out of the park and we may catch glimpses of the shows from the monorail but we have plans to stay in the park and watch it the next night, so I don't want the kids to have it too spoiled for them. Who knows....they may both be asleep by then!

We'll hit up the car and head back to our 1 bedroom villa, hopefully in the Springs section, and head to bed. We are planning to hit rope drop at MK the next day!

 

[Jfsag123]

Your pictures made me super happy. And I like your arrival day changes! It will probably be good to not feel like you have to be so rushed, plus will give you a chance to soak in the atmosphere when you get there, which can be overwhelming for littles! Love that you made your changes during what was supposed to be nap time. I'm actually in bed typing this from my iPad, as I said I was going to try to get a nap and instead am here on the Dis

 

[ArielSRL]

Your pictures made me super happy. And I like your arrival day changes! It will probably be good to not feel like you have to be so rushed, plus will give you a chance to soak in the atmosphere when you get there, which can be overwhelming for littles! Love that you made your changes during what was supposed to be nap time. I'm actually in bed typing this from my iPad, as I said I was going to try to get a nap and instead am here on the Dis

Yay! I'm so excited! Yes, I think I made some good changes. Just not sure why it took me so long to figure it out! Lol.

And yes, I tend to DIS quite a bit when I'm supposed to be napping, so great minds think alike!

So, so close......

 

[ariane37]

Your arrival day looks great It may still seem packed but it's so hard to NOT plan a lot that first day when you have pretty much the whole day available. And as you've said, you can adjust as you go. Nobody says you HAVE to do it all just because it's planned!

I'm reading your driving times and totally wishing I lived that close Just out of curiosity, how close (if close at all) do you live to Alpharetta?

 

[ArielSRL]

Your arrival day looks great It may still seem packed but it's so hard to NOT plan a lot that first day when you have pretty much the whole day available. And as you've said, you can adjust as you go. Nobody says you HAVE to do it all just because it's planned!

I'm reading your driving times and totally wishing I lived that close Just out of curiosity, how close (if close at all) do you live to Alpharetta?

Yes, I'm sure my two under two and my two over 65 will dictate a lot of what we do or don't do! I'll watch all my carefully constructed plans crumble.....lol.

Yes, we really should go more often bc we live so close!

Alpharetta is about an hour away. It is still a suburb of Atlanta but we are fairly spread out here. And the traffic is horrendous!

 

[ArielSRL]

This Time Next Week - MK Sunday 6/5

So, Mom and I are planning to get up around maybe 6 or 6:30 and get the coffee started and get ourselves ready. The boys will probably wake up soon after. Who knows when Dad will be up. I'm not sure if he will make any rope drops at all.....

We are planning to get out to the bus stop around 7:45. If we are in the Springs section, we'll cross the bridge to Paddock for the bus as it's the 3rd station as opposed to the 5th that The Springs is. We will mostly drive to the parks because we'll have a lot of "stuff" and we can park up close due to my dad's handicap placard, but busing it to MK for RD just makes more sense.

Here's how our day should start out, after driving under this sign:

we hope to see this:

I've never seen the Welcome Show, so this will be another teary moment for me, I'm sure - and a moment for my mom to make fun of me (I thought she was a true Disney fan but apparently not!!)!

Once we get inside we will head straight here:
AJ has requested I ask that he does the card trick we saw on YouTube. Is that a normal request??

Next is a quick visit to Adventureland for:




Next up is breakfast to meet some friends:


After this, we will head back for an early break, as we have to be back in the park by 3:30. AJ has an appointment here:

After that we'll check out a few oldie but goodies:



Continued in next post...