The Final Countdown - A Last Minute PTR for September 2019! (Updated 8/28)

[Disney102015]

Hey all! Longtime DIS lurker and occasional poster, here to share my first pre-trip report for our vacation coming up in just about a month. I’ve had so much fun following other trip reports on the DIS and finally decided it was time to join in!

WHO?

For the first 3 nights, it’s just me, my husband, and our 1.5 year old son. This will be the 5th trip DH and I have taken to Disney together. He went once as a kid while I grew up going every other year or so. At first he was a little mystified by my Disney enthusiasm but he’s come around over time and has even been watching Disney vlogs with me as we plan this trip! He doesn’t ride the major coasters but loves Test Track and all non-coaster rides at AK. My #1 favorite ride is RnRC although I have a soft spot for the classics like Peter Pan and Small World.

This will be my son’s second trip. My side of the family made a trip back in November so we were very lucky to be able to get APs this year to cover the 2 trips. (It basically saved money, right?? #disneymath.) It was SO fun watching my son discover Disney. He was only 6 months old so we didn’t really have any expectations but he laughed and laughed on the teacups and had so much fun meeting Mickey. Honestly though, I think his favorite ride was the bus - so many new friends to wave to!! It will be so interesting to see how he reacts to everything now that he’s a bit bigger (and walking/running! Do we put him on a leash this time? Stay tuned!)

Disclaimer: this PTR (and eventual TR) are going to be light on photos - I’m still a little iffy about posting pics of DS on the interwebs. He is so adorable I am worried sometime might steal him (you’ll just have to take my word for it!) But here’s one little peek, from our last trip:



After 3 nights, we’ll be joined by my MIL, FIL, BIL, SIL, SIL’s mom, and our niece! We haven’t taken a big trip with DH’s family before, and we live in another state, so it’s going to be really nice to spend the full week together. My SIL did a lot of the planning for this trip and is just as detail oriented as me, so it’s been so fun to have someone to obsess with. Is there a spreadsheet? Oh, heck yes!! My BIL is going to be my partner in crime for an obscenely early visit to Galaxy’s Edge, and it’ll be our niece’s very first trip (she’s 2.5) so I can’t wait to see what all her favorites are. My in-laws haven’t been to WDW in 20+ years - they’re a tiny bit perplexed about the level of planning that goes into a trip these days, but they’re along for the ride and thrilled to be spending a week with their littlest grandkids.

WHEN?

We are headed to the happiest place on earth for 10 glorious nights in mid-September - which just happens to include my birthday!

WHERE?

For the first 3 nights, DH, DS and I are at Caribbean Beach. We have changed our resort for this leg of the trip 4 or 5 times as discounts came out. We started with a bounce back booked at the Contemporary but once the AP discounts came out, we changed things around. I don’t thiiiiink we’ll be making any further changes at this point...but you never know! I stayed at Caribbean beach a few times as a kid but haven’t been back in a while, so I am looking forward to seeing all the recent updates. The Skyliner won’t be open yet but we don’t mind - DH doesn’t like heights anyway. We’ll have the regular dining plan for the first 3 nights.

Once the rest of the fam arrives, we move over to Art of Animation for a whole week!! We have 2 Finding Nemo suites between the 9 of us. I’ve never stayed here before and think DS is going to love it. We’ve been watching some Disney movies to get ready for the trip and “meee-mo” is definitely a favorite. We have the QS dining plan for the week and will also be doing a few TS meals with the TIW card we bought on our last trip.

WHY?

So - why the last minute PTR? Well, I need somewhere to direct my obsessive Disney planning energy for the next month or so, while I tweak (and re-tweak...and re-tweak...) our FPs and ADRs! Especially with SWGE opening just before our trip, rather unexpectedly, I feel like our plans will be a little more in flux than usual, as we keep an eye on what happens with crowds in the next few weeks.

Also, while I love reading all trip reports, when planning the first trip with our baby I found it SO helpful to read about trips with little ones, so hopefully writing up all our plans might be able to help someone else with their planning - plus, it’s a nice way to preserve some of the memories we make with our little guy, so that’s an added bonus.

Looking forward to sharing our plans - thanks for following along!

 

[Disney102015]

You know things are getting real when the Magic Bands arrive!! I had been holding out for a bit trying to get the upgraded bands but availability came and went so quickly every time I tried to order so we finally just went with solid colors.


DS was pretty excited to check out the bands!

So as I mentioned in the intro, this will be me and DH’s 5th trip together. We have gone twice alone, once with my mom’s side, and once with my dad’s side - and now this trip with DH’s family. I think the best thing about traveling with a new group is that you end up doing things you had never thought to do before. So before I get into the nitty gritty of our daily plans, I thought I’d share some of the things we are excited to try for the very first time this trip!

MNSSHP
Oh my goodness, I can’t wait for this! We did the Christmas party a few years back and it was my favorite thing we have ever done in Disney, so I am psyched to try the Halloween party. DS is going to dress as Mickey and our niece is going to be Minnie I’ve been reading some reports about crowds this year but we are going in with pretty low expectations of what we will accomplish. (Honestly my favorite part of the Christmas party was just strolling down Main Street and enjoying the party atmosphere!) My main priorities for MNSSHP are having DS meet Moana, riding Space Mountain in the dark, and catching the Hocus Pocus show.

OHANA
A restaurant I’ve always been interested in but have never booked! I think this will be really fun to do with a big group.

HARMONY BARBER SHOP
I had never heard of this until recently. DS hasn’t had his first haircut yet so we figured it’d be pretty special to do it in Disney. Will there be tears when they trim those tiny baby curls? Can neither confirm nor deny.

TOY STORY LAND
We had planned to visit this land on our last visit, but HS was our second park of the day, it was SO HOT, and by the time we made the (crazy long!) trek from the bus stop, we were all just kind of exhausted! We ended up just using our RnRC FP then retreating to the A/C at the hotel, and never made it back. So I am pumped to actually check out the land this time - especially since DS just hit 32 inches and will hopefully be able to ride Alien Swirling Saucers!

FROZEN DESSERT PARTY
SO....I’m excited about this but have a little bit of mixed feelings! One of my very few “must do’s” for this trip is to see Illuminations with a decent view. DH has never seen it and I want to make sure we see it before it’s gone. Originally we booked the Illuminations dining package at Rose and Crown and we were really looking forward to it. But, the more we started thinking about it, we weren’t sure how our little one would do at a sit down meal at that hour. Plus we have no idea how he’ll react to fireworks. After watching a bunch of vlogs, we decided it looked like the dessert party has a little more space for him to stretch his legs if needed. As a bonus the fireworks were an hour earlier on the night we could book the dessert party, so overall this seemed like the right choice.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER
This may or may not happen, depending how well DS holds up at night. But, we’ve been watching some videos of the show on YouTube and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry like a baby. (Sensing a pattern here??) So hopefully we’ll get to check it out.

GALAXY’s EDGE
OK, if I am being honest, we did panic a little when we saw that SWGE was opening right before our trip. We like Star Wars but aren’t huge fans, and had definitely planned our trip dates to be before SWGE opened. The best laid plans, right?! Oh well - we are planning to make the best of it, and BIL and I hope to get to HS absurdly early one morning to ride Millennium Falcon and try out Oga’s. I can’t believe SWGE opens tomorrow!! We’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for updates over the next couple weeks to see what crowds are looking like for the 6am openings.

Next up - the day by day plan!