The One Where They Go to Disney (again): December 2019 PTR (UPDATED 11/15)

[chri3060]

Hello! And welcome to my very first PTR! I have been a member of the Dis since 2017, quietly following along and reading other TR, and decided that it was time to jump in and join the fun.

Allow me to introduce my traveling party!

Who am I?

My name is Liz.


I am a life-long Disney fan. My family started taking trips back in the early 90s when I was around 5, and my sister was a toddler. We went frequently, about every other year, until the early 2000s when school started to get busy, and my parents decided to take us to different vacation destinations. I had a very long stretch between Disney trips, not going back until December 2017 with my husband and his parents, who are also Disney obsessed. Since then, my husband and I traveled to WDW for a week in September 2018 for F&W, have been on 3 trips so far this year, and became Annual Passholders. It is my goal in life to stay at every resort on Disney property (so far, this trip included, 8 down and a lot to go!) We have a 5 night, 6 day WDW vacation coming up in December of this year, and I cannot wait!

I am obsessed with all things Disney. From blogs/vlogs/podcasts, to movies, merch, and more. My family and friends constantly joke that I should become a Disney Travel Agent or move to Florida. Maybe one day, but for now, I’m happy with our (more than) yearly trips!

Favorite restaurant: Sanaa
Favorite park: Epcot
Favorite ride: Big Thunder Mountain
Favorite snack: Citrus Swirl from Sunshine Tree Terrace
Favorite resort: Tie between Gran Destino Tower as CSR and Yacht Club

My Disney World partner in crime is my DH, Kyle.


We have been together for over 7 years, getting married in July 2016. Kyle started to travel to WDW in 1992 with his parents and sister. He’s even been lucky enough to go to DL a couple of times. Like me, Kyle had a long stretch of time between his last Disney trip and our first trip together in Dec 2017. Kyle is a huge Star Wars and Marvel fan, and a has recently delved into the world of pin trading. Even though he loves Disney, he lets me take the lead when it comes to planning our trips, and I LOVE it. To me, half of the fun of a Disney trip is the planning itself!

Favorite restaurant: Sci-Fi Dine In
Favorite park: Hollywood Studios
Favorite ride: Splash Mountain
Favorite snack: Mickey ice cream sandwich
Favorite resort: Yacht Club

And that’s that! Yes, we are that childless Millennial couple that is Disney obsessed. But I promise we won’t steal your child’s Mickey pretzel. No promises when it comes to a citrus swirl though!


So what do we have planned for December 2019? This trip started out as a bounce back offer when we were in WDW January of this year. We knew that we wanted a second trip this year, and I love seeing Disney decked out in all her Christmas glory. We originally had planned on a Monday through Saturday trip, but there was nothing available, so we settled for Tuesday through Saturday and booked PORFQ. Flash forward to late Spring when Southwest finally released their flights in December. We’re from Buffalo, NY so driving is not really an option for us since it would take a few days out of our Disney time. The flights on Monday were better than Tuesday, time and price-wise, so I booked us to fly out on Monday morning on a direct flight.

Now if you’re thinking “But Liz, your hotel reservation isn’t until Tuesday!” you, my friend, are not wrong! After many calls to the Disney bounce back line, and website stalking, Disney finally released AP rates for the Fall/Winter, and I was able to snag a reservation for one night at PORS. It’s basically like being at the same resort, and just having to walk to a new room on the other side.

I’ll be back with the general itinerary for each day of our trip. Since this will be our 6th trip since 2017 (4th of this year), I am looking into the different tours that are offered throughout the parks to switch things up. We haven’t done any of the tours before, so if anyone has any recommendations, I would really appreciate it!

 

[chri3060]

Now that I’ve had the opportunity to share a little bit about ourselves, let’s get on with the trip details! We will be traveling to WDW Dec. 9th through the 15th. Like I mentioned before, our first night we will be staying at Port Orleans: River Side. I was able to snag the AP rate for a preferred room. Then Tuesday morning, we’ll transfer over to Port Orleans French Quarter under our bounce back reservation, another preferred room. Depending on how we’re feeling that morning, we’ll either ask bell services transfer our bags, or just walk them over ourselves to POFQ, and leave them with bell services until our room is ready. The latter is what I am leaning towards, because I am all about beignets for a pre breakfast snack.
Some other information about our trip:

• Like I mentioned before, we have APs, so we don’t have to worry about standard park tickets
• We don’t be on the DDP. We’ve used the DDP before, but only with the Free Dining offer. While we loved the all-inclusive feel of the DDP, it was just too much food for us.
• Since we won’t be on the DDP, we plan on purchasing the TIW card on our first day.
• Our trip overlaps with DH’s parents’ trip, so we will be spending time with them as well!

Here’s what I have planned so far for our 5 night, 6 day stay.
12/9, Day 1- Arrival day! We depart from the Buffalo airport at 6:40am. We have TSA Precheck, and we only live about 25 minutes from the airport, so we don’t have to leave our house until around 5am. Hopefully, the weather in December is mild, and there won’t be any delays due to snow! Our flight is scheduled to arrive in Orlando at 9:25am. We’ve never taken the ME, so the plan is to grab a rideshare to POR to drop our bags, and then head to Epcot. I’m hoping to get to the park around 11am. Once at the park, I’m going to purchase the TIW card from guest services, and then head into the park. We were able to say goodbye to the Epcot we know and love on our last trip in earlier in August. Epcot is my favorite park, and I am excited to see the new developments Disney has planned for it! We have a 1:30pm lunch reservation as Rose & Crown Pub, which is one of DH’s favorite WS restaurants. I’m kind of using this ADR as a placeholder in case Space 220 ADRs open before our trip. If that happens, see ya R&C! The plan is to spend the afternoon wandering around WS and the Festival of the Holidays before returning to the resort and checking into our room. Depending on how we’re feeling, we will either spend the evening and grab dinner in DS or relax at the resort.

12/10, Day 2- MK! This is going to be an early morning for us. After transferring our bags to POFQ, either by bell services or ourselves, we have an 8:10am PPO breakfast ADR at the Plaza. We have never dined at the Plaza Restaurant, and I am looking forward to it. We’ve been able to snag a PPO BOG ADR on a past trip, but that was while we were on the DDP. IMO, BOG breakfast is not worth paying OOP for. After breakfast, if I’m not able to get a 7DMT FP, we’ll rope drop that, and then conquer the rest of Fantasy Land. Then onto Liberty Square to visit our favorite happy haunts, Frontier Land for our favorite mountains (if it isn’t too cold for Splash), a stop for QS lunch (we love CHH), and then Adventure land for scenic boat rides, and of course, a citrus swirl. We’ve never really took the time to watch any of the afternoon parades, so I’m adding it to our plans, but if we miss it, NBD. Tomorrowland isn’t high on our list of activities, expect for a trip on the People Mover and a spin around CoP. There’s a MVMCP at MK that night, so we’ll most likely head out of MK in the late afternoon, and head to POFQ to check in. We have a dinner ADR with DH’s parents at Flying Fish. After dinner, we’ll either hangout on the Boardwalk, or head to Epcot for the remainder of the evening. This will be a relatively early night because the next day we’ll be traveling to Batuu!

12/11, Day 3 DHS! This is the day that I am most excited for. We were fortunate enough to be able to attend the AP preview for SW:GE earlier in August with DH’s parents, and they will be joining us again for this trip to Batuu. This will be our first time experiencing RotR. With the attraction opening just a week prior, I’m hoping that Disney will announce some kind of EEMH like they are currently doing for the opening of SW:GE. If not, my MIL was able to get a PPO ADR for H&V. If you could guess, none of us are Disney Junior fans, so this ADR is literally just to get us into the park early. Like I have mentioned several times, DH is a HUGE SW fan. I was able to get a 10am reservation for Savi’s so he can build his very own lightsaber. We were able to visit Oga’s earlier this month, and loved the entire experience, so we have a “lunch” ADR at 2:30pm. We really enjoyed the food at Docking Bay 7, so actual lunch will probably be there. I’m going to try to get a TSMM FP for later in the afternoon because its (currently) my favorite ride in DHS. We have an ADR for Ale & Compass later that evening. IMO, its an underrated restaurant. We’ve enjoyed our meals every time we’ve dined here. After dinner, we’ll probably head back to the resort to crash.

12/12, Day 4 MK/Epcot! Not much planned for this day. Whatever we weren’t able to do/see on our first MK day, we’ll try to tackle in the morning. I’m thinking this morning might be good for one of the shorter tours that are offered in MK. At 12:30, my MIL and I are heading to afternoon tea at the GF. GF is one of my favorite resorts at Christmastime, and I am really looking forward to spending some one on one girl time with my MIL. DH and FIL are off on their own for the afternoon, and will probably head to the ESPN restaurant for lunch. After tea, the plan is to head to Epcot for the afternoon, and we have a dinner ARD at Via Napoli. If we haven’t caught it by this time in the trip, I plan on sticking around for the new nighttime show at Epcot.

12/13, Day 5 DHS! Another DHS today. DH will probably want to go to SW:GE again, and if I’m feeling it, I’ll tag along. However, I am completely fine splitting up and doing our own thing in the morning. While SW:GE is fantastic, the rest of the park needs a little love and attention too! I haven’t seen most of the shows, except Indiana Jones and Muppets, since I was a kid, so I’d like to take the time to check them out. We have a noon ADR with DH’s parents at SciFi, and a dinner ADR at Sebastian’s Bistro. We’ve heard a lot of great things about Sebastian’s since it opened, and I love Caribbean food. The plan is to spend the day at DHS, maybe Epcot for a bit if I can pry DH from GE, and then take the Skyliner to CBR for dinner. Then back to the resort to pack up for departure day.

12/14, Day 6 AK/departure day! Our last day in WDW ☹ We plan on having everything packed the night before and dropping our bags at RAC first thing in the morning. We’ll probably end up rope dropping AK if I’m not able to get us FoP FPs. We’ve rope dropped the ride twice in the past with great success, so NBD if we can’t get a FP for it. The safari is a must do for any AK trip. We have lunch reservations for Yak & Yeti at noon. Depending on what we get accomplished in the morning, we might stick around AK after lunch, or head to a different park/DS to end our trip. Our flight doesn’t depart until 7pm, so we probably won’t head to the airport via a rideshare until 5pm. We’re on the same flight home as DH’s parents, so we will probably end up traveling to the airport together. Just thinking of our departure day is already making me sad!

That’s the plan so far! But we all know how easily things can change once FP day comes around. Unless something pops up, during that time, my next update probably won’t be until FP day!

 

[TaraWasHere]

We stayed in a freshly Refurbished room at POFQ last year! I think they have my favorite food court in all of Disney... not to mention the boozy beignets at the Scat Cat!

 

[chri3060]

We stayed in a freshly Refurbished room at POFQ last year! I think they have my favorite food court in all of Disney... not to mention the boozy beignets at the Scat Cat!

The boozy beignets are definitely on my "to eat" list!!

 

[chri3060]

Flight update!!!

I am a self proclaimed stalker of SW flights. Anytime we have a flight booked through SW, I check it daily to see if the price has gone down at all in order to get credits for future flights. Our December flights haven't changed since I booked them in May. Yesterday morning I logged on, and our return flight to Buffalo had gone down $61! I was able to modify my and DH's tickets, so we have $122 credits banked for a future trip

Then last night I logged into the SW app just to see if our morning flight had gone down in price. And to my surprise, IT HAD BE CANCELLED. Apparently SW is now going through flights with the max 737 and cancelling them. The only other morning flight leaving Buffalo on our arrival day is 5:30am. Which means we would have to be up by 3am at the latest to make it to the airport.

Now, I was already thinking about adjusting our plans so we could fly down Sunday and stay at a good neighbor hotel for our first night. I had this idea because a few weeks ago, Disney released AH for December and January, and there's an MK AH on our first night. But if we were to fly in that day, we would totally be too tired to go. We've done the Christmas party before, and while we loved it, I really want to do AH again because I think it will be practically empty with people choosing to do the Christmas party instead.

With our flight being cancelled, SW is letting us change our flight at no additional cost. So my thought is to now fly down on Saturday morning. I have DVC rental requests in with 2 different companies, with 3 resorts options selected for each request. I'm crossing my fingers and toes there is something available with DVC because there are basically no resorts available for 12/7 through 12/10. If we are able to rent DVC, I'll drop our first night at PORS. If not, then we'll probably fly down Sunday, stay at a good neighbor hotel, and then transfer to PORS for one night, and then POFQ for the rest of our stay.

Either way, this just means more Disney time for us!!

Has anyone ever stayed at a good neighbor hotel? Any recommendations?

 

[TaraWasHere]

Good catch! We drive down so no discounts on that! LoL. I don’t know of any good area hotels I’m afraid. We’ve always stayed in the bubble. Can you get an extra day at riverside?

 

[chri3060]

I wish! There is basically nothing available direct through Disney right now for those dates.

 

[Cloe Colton]

Joining in!! You are a kindred spirit my friend! I'm also from Buffalo (Niagara Falls to be exact) and my DH and I are also AP holders to Disney! We went to Disney in August too for the previews (I was honestly surprised how many folks went from around here!) And we have a trip at nearly the same time as you in December 12/13-12/18! AND our SW flight was changed to the exact same time but it allowed me to move it to the night before so we changed our flight too haha thankfully Pop Century was available but rack rate which I'm not entirely thrilled about!

I've stayed at a couple of the Disney Springs resorts but can't really offer up any recommendations unfortunately!

 

[AliceNDinah]

Joining in too! Your plans sound great, so fun to read about! I am SO itching to get back to WDW (I was there in August of 2017). Disboards gives me my fix until I am in the magic again
Can't wait to read more here!!!

 

[chri3060]

Joining in!! You are a kindred spirit my friend! I'm also from Buffalo (Niagara Falls to be exact) and my DH and I are also AP holders to Disney! We went to Disney in August too for the previews (I was honestly surprised how many folks went from around here!) And we have a trip at nearly the same time as you in December 12/13-12/18! AND our SW flight was changed to the exact same time but it allowed me to move it to the night before so we changed our flight too haha thankfully Pop Century was available but rack rate which I'm not entirely thrilled about!

I've stayed at a couple of the Disney Springs resorts but can't really offer up any recommendations unfortunately!

I literally just posted on your PTR about our SW flights! Unfortunately, there weren't many resorts to select from, and like two AP discounted resorts that were wayyyy out of budget, so we're going with All Star Movies again at rack rate. I put in DVC request basically asking for anything, so we'll see!

I'm always so surprised by how many fellow Buffaloians we see during our trips! We're from Hamburg, and we actually ran into family friends when we were in MK during the preview weekend. Such a small world!

Joining in too! Your plans sound great, so fun to read about! I am SO itching to get back to WDW (I was there in August of 2017). Disboards gives me my fix until I am in the magic again
Can't wait to read more here!!!

Disboards is definitely the fix I need in between trips! It's great having a community of people that loves talking about Disney as much as I do!

 

[chri3060]

My thought this morning: I wonder how many times the plans in this PTR will change before we leave in 3 months....

Most recent update! We have officially moved our flight to Disney from Monday, 12/9 to Saturday, 12/7. We'll be departing at 6:10am, arriving at 9am on the dot! DH's parents also have the same flight, so this trip went from our dates overlapping to another Anderson family trip!!

After receiving 2 no availability e-mails from DVC rental sites, I gave up on that plan. I dropped our one night at PORS, and booked us 3 nights at All Star Movies, in a preferred room. While I'm not thrilled to be paying rack rate for the room, it only cost about $250 more to add 2 additional nights, so I can't complain.

The biggest hiccup to this new plan has to do with our pup. We have an almost 10 year old puggle named Phoebe. She's 10 going on 3 with all of the energy she still has. She's a snuggle bug and a wonderful doggy, and we wouldn't trade her for anything in the world.


DH's parents usually watch her while we're out of town since they are only 15 minutes from out house. However, they will be with us in Disney. The original plan was for us to drive an hour to my parents' house near Rochester, NY on Saturday, and they would watch her for the week. They don't mind watching her for the additional days, its just getting P there that's the problem since we now leave on Saturday. I talked to my mom and told her that if she and my dad came out after work on Friday we would take them out to dinner and they could A) spend the night in our guestroom and drive us to the airport Saturday morning with P in tow or B) leave after dinner Friday night with P, and we'll Lyft/Uber to the airport. I know getting them out here won't be an issue because one of their favorite restaurants is in the town next to ours. However, convincing them to spend the night and take us to the airport at 5am the following morning might require a little more work. Maybe the promise of a Disney souvenir would do the trick!

Now that we have 2 more days in our happy place, I'm at a loss for what to do! Since DH is a huge SW fan, and RotR opens on 12/5, I told him I wouldn't mind going to HS on our new arrival day and standing in what will probably be an hours long line to ride RotR. Since we're weren't even supposed to be in Disney this day, it's not that big of a deal to me. Plus, it will give us time to really play around with the features Disney has built into the Play app for SW:GE. We still don't have any dining plans for Saturday. I figured we'll just wing it, but I do have a reservation alert set for Homecomin'. The plan, as of now, is to do HS during the morning/afternoon, check in at the resort once our room is ready, and then DS for the evening depending on how tired we are.

Sunday will probably be an MK day as TP has crowd levels at a 2. It's a party night, so I booked us dinner at Coral Reef since DH has wanted to check it out on our past couple trips. I also have a reservation alert set for Cali Grill brunch. If by some miracle we're able to get that, we will be doing nothing but brunching our hearts out for as long as we can. And then we'll probably need to nap off our food comas.

I'm still debating between getting tickets for MVMCP or MK AH during our stay. I'm holding out at this point on the off chance that Disney announces some kind of hard ticketed special event for SW:GE. If that happens, we will definitely be doing that!

I think that's all the updates for now! I'm in the beginning stages of planning a trip to WDW in May 2020 with another couple, so that PTR will be coming soon!

 

[caylene44]

Joining!

My family and friends constantly joke that I should become a Disney Travel Agent or move to Florida.

Same here! I looked into being a TA but I didn't think I had the amount of time to be dedicated to it. One of my dreams though because I love trip planning!

We haven’t done any of the tours before, so if anyone has any recommendations, I would really appreciate it!

Keys to the Kingdom is the top of my list and I've heard it's great! But I've also heard the ones involving animals (like Up Close with Rhinos) are awesome as well.

My thought this morning: I wonder how many times the plans in this PTR will change before we leave in 3 months....

Probably a bunch, at least in my experience! Hahah.

I also have a reservation alert set for Cali Grill brunch.

You might get lucky! I scored a CG brunch reservation for 2 for our trip but couldn't work it into our schedule anywhere. I also scored a V&A reservation but my BF made me cancel it when he heard the cost

 

[chri3060]

Joining!

Keys to the Kingdom is the top of my list and I've heard it's great! But I've also heard the ones involving animals (like Up Close with Rhinos) are awesome as well.

You might get lucky! I scored a CG brunch reservation for 2 for our trip but couldn't work it into our schedule anywhere. I also scored a V&A reservation but my BF made me cancel it when he heard the cost

Thanks for joining in!! We scored a Cali Brunch at 10am in July when we went, but our flight departed at 2pm, so the latest we could stay would have been 12pm, so I decided to let that one go. The Chef's Table at V&A is life goals for me. Trying to convince DH that our 5 year anniversary is worth the price, but he's not having it so far lol.

Keys to the Kingdom is at the top of our list right now! I also love to cook/bake, so if the Taste of MK tour is still happening when we go, I definitely want to do that.

 

[chri3060]

I can't believe we're one week away from booking our fastpasses!!! I thought I would do a breakdown of what I'm hoping to get so I have a plan of action for next week.

12/7: arrival day! If all goes as planned, we're arrive at MCO at 9am on the dot. I'm hoping to be in a park by 11am at the latest. DH and I decided to make DHS our first park of the trip. We'll bee line it to SWGE and wait in line for RoTR. I'm expecting this to be a pretty lengthy wait, so I'm not going to book any FPs until late afternoon.

2-3pm: Slinky Dog or TSM.
3-4pm: Indiana Jones
4-5pm: Muppet Vision 3D

We have dinner reservations at the Edison at 6pm, so after Muppets we'll head out of the park and to DS for the evening. I think this will be the best plan even though we'll be backtracking from Indy to Muppets. If we aren't feeling Muppets and we want to head to the resort to change/freshen up, I'd rather miss Muppets than the Indiana Jones show!

12/8: MK AM/Epcot PM! The park is scheduled to open at 9am, so we'll be there for RD. If I'm not able to get a FP for BTMR or 7DMT, we'll head to one of them first. I hope to get several rides done within the first 2 hours and then will start our FPs.

11am-12pm: 7DMT
12-1pm: BTMR
1-2pm: Jingle Cruise

This day is a party day, so we'll be spending the evening in Epcot with a dining reservation at Coral Reef for 6:10pm.

12/9: Epcot! We'll be rope dropping again on this morning, with the park opening at 9am. My plan is to RD either Soarin' or TT, whichever I'm not able to get a FP for. I plan to have all of our FPs lined up for the morning so we can spend the afternoon in WS.

9-10am: TT or Soarin'
10-11am: SE (if it's still open) or Living with the Land
11am-12pm: Nemo or Epcot Forever

This will be the first day where we're planning on stay in the same park for the entire day. This will probably change day of since we love to park hop, but for now, all day is the plan.

12/10: MK AM/DHS PM! We have a PPO reservation at the Plaza at 8:10am, so we should be able to RD 7DMT. The plan will be to tour Fantasy Land and Tomorrowland, and then have FPs for the other side of the park,

11am-12pm: BTMR or Splash (if it isn't too cold!)
12-1pm: Haunted Mansion
1-2pm: Pirates

We having dining reservations at Flying Fish this night, so we'll go back to the resort to change before heading to the Boardwalk area. After dinner, we'll head to DHS for the nighttime shows.

12/11: DHS! First full day, like rope drop to fireworks, at Studios. Plan is to spend the morning in SWGE with FPs in the afternoon for other attractions. We have a Savi's reservation for 10am so DH can build his lightsaber, followed up by an Oga's reservation at 2:10pm.

3-4pm: TOT or Slinky Dog/TSM
4-5pm: Beauty and the Beast
5-6pm: Frozen Sing-Along

The only shows we have ever done at DHS are Indiana Jones and Muppets. With the new FP system, we're kinda forced to do things we normally wouldn't, which is good I guess? I'm not the biggest Frozen fan, and DH couldn't care less, so this one might be a throw away FP. We have dinner plans at Ale & Compass at 8:30pm, so I think we should be able to see a nighttime show before heading to the Yacht Club for dinner.

12/12: MK AM/Epcot PM!: Another split day. The MVMCP is making is difficult to spend an entire day in MK, but like I said before, we like to park hop. No FPs in the morning. I figured we can rope drop and knock out a few things in the AM. Then I have afternoon tea with my MIL at 12:30pm at the GF, and DH is heading to ESPN Club with his dad for lunch. The plan is to meet up afterwards for a late afternoon/evening in Epcot.

3-4pm: Soarin' or TT
4-5pm: Living with the Land
5-6pm: Nemo or Epcot Forever

12/13: DHS! I should really rename the PTR, The One Where They Go To SWGE lol DH is a HUGE fan of all things Star Wars, so I feel like we need to spend as much time as possible in the land. However, I might get tired of it, and I'm fine adventuring off on my own. FPs for the afternoon, since we'll probably rope drop SWGE:

12-1pm: TSM or Slinky
1-2pm: Muppet Vision if we didn't see it the first day
2-3pm: Voyage of the Little Mermaid

As I was typing these out, I thought why bother with FPs?! But at least it will be something to do if I can't handle anymore Star Wars. We have a dinner reservation at 6:40pm for Sebastian's, so we'll catch a ride on the Skyliner to CBR.

12/14: Departure day/DAK! This is our only AK time. Neither of us are huge fans of the park, and it really is a 1/2 park to us. We'll rope drop FoP if I'm not able to get us a FP. Since we're only planning a 1/2 day here, the FPs will start first thing.

9-10am: FoP
10-11am: Safari
11am-12pm: Everest

We have a lunch reservation for Yak and Yeti at 12:45pm, and then we'll head out of the park. We don't need to go to the airport until around 5pm, so we'll either head to another park or DS.

And that's the plan! Fingers crossed that I get everything we're hoping for, and plans don't have to change around too much!

 

[chri3060]

Happy FastPass Day to me!!! I logged on bright and early this morning, around 6:50am, to make sure I was ready to go! I was able to get fastpasses for all the rides we wanted, even though they don't line up perfectly with what I had previously outlined.

Here's our fastpass schedule for our week. In bold is what I originally wanted, followed by what we ended up getting:

Arrival Day, Saturday,12/7, Hollywood Studios:
2-3pm: Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Mania
3-4pm: Indiana Jones, Muppet Vision
4-5pm: Muppet Vision, 4:15pm: Indiana Jones

Sunday, 12/8, Magic Kingdom:
11am-12pm: 7DMT, 10:30am-11:30am: BTMR
12-1pm: Haunted Mansion, 11:35am-12:35pm: Haunted Mansion
1-2pm: BTMR, Peter Pan's Flight

Monday, 12/9, Epcot:
9-10am: Soarin' or Test Track, Soarin'
10-11am: Spaceship Earth, 10:15-11:15am: Spaceship Earth
11am-12pm: Epcot Forever, 11:25am-12:25pm: LwtL

Tuesday, 12/10, Magic Kingdom:
11am-12pm: BTMR, 11:10am-12:10pm: 7DMT
12-1pm: Pirates, 12:10-1:10pm, Pirates
1-2pm: Jungle Cruise, 1:25-2:25pm, Jungle Cruise

Wednesday, 12/11, Hollywood Studios:
3-4pm: ToT or SDD/TSM, 3:05-4:05pm: SDD
4-5pm: Beauty & the Beast- Live, 4:30-5:30pm: Beauty & the Beast- Live
5-6pm: Frozen Singalong or Fantasmic, 7:20pm: Fantasmic

Thursday, 12/12, Epcot:
3-4pm: Test Track or Soarin', 3:15-4:15pm: Soarin'
4-5pm: LwtL or Spaceship Earth, 4:25-5:25pm: Nemo & Friends
5-6pm: Nemo & Friends, 5:25-6:25pm: Spaceship Earth

Friday, 12/13, Hollywood Studios:
12-1pm: SDD or TSM, SDD
1-2pm: Muppet Vision, 2:45pm Indiana Jones
2-3pm: Voyage of the Little Mermaid, 4:05-5:05pm, Voyage of the Little Mermaid

Saturday, 12/14, Animal Kingdom/Departure Day:
9-10am: FoP, 9:15-10:15am: FoP
10-11am: Safari, 10:20-11:20am: Safari
11am-12pm: Everest, 11:30am-12:30pm: Everest

I am so happy with our selections!! I might change the afternoon Epcot FPs on 12/12 to morning FPs at MK, but we shall see.

 

[Cloe Colton]

Nice FPs snag!! I'm surprised you were able to get SDD on arrival day! I wonder if people are avoiding DHS that day with ROTR opening??

Also, I'm still jealous you were able to extend your trip so much! lol I wish!

 

[chri3060]

Nice FPs snag!! I'm surprised you were able to get SDD on arrival day! I wonder if people are avoiding DHS that day with ROTR opening??

Also, I'm still jealous you were able to extend your trip so much! lol I wish!

I was shocked too!! We've never been able to score a SDD FP before, so I was thrilled to get 2 throughout our trip! I also had a strategic plan of attack when doing FPs this time. Instead of going day by day, I went attraction by attraction and jumped all over the place lol It was a bit chaotic, but got the job done!

I think the week we're going is going to be slower, because an hour after I posted, I went back in and changed our FPs on 12/12 to MK instead of Epcot. There were still plenty of 7DMT FPs available in the morning. So our 12/12 day now looks like:

9:30-10:30am: 7DMT
10:35-11:35am: BTMR
11:40am-12:40pm: It's a Small World (this is a maybe FP since I have tea at the GF at 12:30pm and DH has lunch at ESPN on the Boardwalk at the sane time).

I was so happy we got to add on an additional 2 days. Now that AP rates for Jan through April 2020 have been released, we're planning a late Jan trip to check out Festival of the Arts!

 

[Cloe Colton]

I was shocked too!! We've never been able to score a SDD FP before, so I was thrilled to get 2 throughout our trip! I also had a strategic plan of attack when doing FPs this time. Instead of going day by day, I went attraction by attraction and jumped all over the place lol It was a bit chaotic, but got the job done!

I think the week we're going is going to be slower, because an hour after I posted, I went back in and changed our FPs on 12/12 to MK instead of Epcot. There were still plenty of 7DMT FPs available in the morning. So our 12/12 day now looks like:

9:30-10:30am: 7DMT
10:35-11:35am: BTMR
11:40am-12:40pm: It's a Small World (this is a maybe FP since I have tea at the GF at 12:30pm and DH has lunch at ESPN on the Boardwalk at the sane time).

I was so happy we got to add on an additional 2 days. Now that AP rates for Jan through April 2020 have been released, we're planning a late Jan trip to check out Festival of the Arts!

Yeah I usually book all of my SDD and FOP FPs first before anything else! haha that will be awesome if your week has lower crowds! I make our fastpasses Monday so it will be interesting to see how that goes!

How awesome to add on another trip!! I really want to do a trip around MLK day but the flights from Buffalo are just SO high. Maybe if Frontier does like a crazy deal we may plan something last minute lol but probably not. Which is unfortunate because I would love to see Festival of the Arts!

 

[chri3060]

Yeah I usually book all of my SDD and FOP FPs first before anything else! haha that will be awesome if your week has lower crowds! I make our fastpasses Monday so it will be interesting to see how that goes!

How awesome to add on another trip!! I really want to do a trip around MLK day but the flights from Buffalo are just SO high. Maybe if Frontier does like a crazy deal we may plan something last minute lol but probably not. Which is unfortunate because I would love to see Festival of the Arts!

I hope your FPs went smoothly this morning!! We've only been to Food & Wine and Festival of the Holidays at Epcot, so I am taking full advantage of having APs this year!

 

[Cloe Colton]

I hope your FPs went smoothly this morning!! We've only been to Food & Wine and Festival of the Holidays at Epcot, so I am taking full advantage of having APs this year!

It went great! Thankfully I wasn't expecting SDD for our first DHS day but I was able to get it on our last day! Always nice once FPs are booked!