Third Time's The Charm--Maybe--- Sept 2018 PTR **UPDATED 6/27**

[jchurch0409]

Hello All! This is my second PTR. I am hoping to actually finish a TR after this trip. I was very unsuccessful after our first trip and our second trip consisted of only 1 park day. This is where the title comes from. So, now onto the good stuff! Here are our plans:

Where: All-Star Music
When: September 7-15
7-Day Hoppers & hoping for Free Dining​

Who are we?​

This trip will include 13 people. First up is me! My name is Tiffany. I will turn 32 right before this trip! This will be my third trip to Disney. I am a SAHM to my four lovely children. I also run an Etsy shop selling handmade children's clothing. My DH is Jonathan. He will also be 32 on this trip. He is a USPS City Carrier. This will be his 4th trip. We have four kids---Piper who is 9, Caiden is also 9, Gabriel is 7, and Simon will be 5. This will be the third trip for Piper, Gabriel, and Simon. It will be the second trip for Caiden (first to any park except MK) since we adopted him in 2015 after our last big trip! We are so excited for him to experience the other three parks this time.

MK_SBCSIDESHOWGOOFINICHAR_20170819_404308792529 by TiffanyNot the best picture of us. From our 1-Day MK Trip in August 2017

Next up! My Mom, Step-Dad (Jason), Little Sis Shayda who will be 11 and my little brother Drake who will also be 9! This is Mom and Step-Dad's fourth trip and Shayda and Drake's third trip.

MK_SBCSIDESHOWDONALDOCHAR_20170819_404309257332 by Tiffany

Last, but not least! My Sister Emilee and her husband Judd, along with Nola (2) will be joining us for part of the trip! They are only coming September 9-14.

22851977_1839920526048268_1370119150780409907_n by Tiffany Halloween 2017

Our first big family trip was in May 2015. We stayed for 7 nights at All Star Music. We had the Disney Dining Plan. While we really enjoyed the Character meals, we decided that sit-down meals with reservations really didn't fit our style, so this time we have decided to just do the Quick Service Dining Plan. It is just a better fit for us! We also got the Memory Maker. We love it! We even purchased it last year for our one day MK visit.

Our second trip was 3 nights at Fort Wilderness Campsites in August 2017. We had a cruise out of Jacksonville scheduled and decided since we would be in Florida, we would check out camping at Disney. We also wanted to let our son Caiden visit MK since he had never been. It was a wonderful but tiring trip!

 

[jchurch0409]

Table of Contents

1. Plans so Far!
2. ADRs
3. 2017 TR---Day 1
4. 2017 TR---Day 2
5. 2017 TR---Day 2 Part 2
6. 2017 TR---Day 3
7. 2017 TR---Day 3 Part 2
8. 2017 TR---Day 3 Part 3
9. 2017 TR---Days 4 & 5
10. ADR Update!
11. Movie Night #1
12. Plans!
13. FP+ Plans and Life Update​

 

[jchurch0409]

Plans so Far!​

First up is our travel plans. We live in the mountains of NC. It takes about 10 hours to get to Disney (with stops) from our house. We plan to leave when DH gets off work on September 6, hopefully by 5:00. We will drive as far as we feel like it and stop for the night. We visit Texas in the summer to see my Dad and Step-Mom as well as Emilee's family. So my kids are used to traveling in the car for long stretches at a time. When we are ready to stop, we use one of the booking sites. This is our plan for Thursday night. We hope to actually make it into Florida.
Emilee and family will drive from Texas and join us on Sunday.

2017-06-20_16-05-32_800 by Tiffany

Random photo of Simon in Texas last summer.

This is our first time getting park hoppers. We are so excited about being able to visit different parks each day. This is one thing we wished we would have purchased the last trip.

I am a SAHM, but I do sew on the side and have an Etsy shop. My main seller is cotton Everyday Princess dresses. We made a couple of shirts and dresses for our 2015 trip. I also made some for our MK trip last year. We plan to do several more custom things this year! I will share them here as we finish them.

disney 2015 collage by Tiffany 2015 Trip

2017 collage by Tiffany 2017 Trip

I hope this isn't boring you all to death! I am not the best writer, but I love reading PTRs and TRs. I also enjoy looking back at my 2015 PTR and really wish I would have finished my TR!​

 

[CatNipRules]

Following along. Can't wait to read your plans. Exciting stuff so far. I envy you and being able to make clothes. I'm unable to do anything like that. LOL!! Can't wait to read more!!

Interesting note or maybe not, my husband was from NC and his Aunt lives there. My mom also lives in Texas. LOL!!

 

[jchurch0409]

Following along. Can't wait to read your plans. Exciting stuff so far. I envy you and being able to make clothes. I'm unable to do anything like that. LOL!! Can't wait to read more!!

Interesting note or maybe not, my husband was from NC and his Aunt lives there. My mom also lives in Texas. LOL!!

Thank you for joining in! It is interesting! What part of NC was your husband from? We live in the foothills between Boone and Winston-Salem. My Dad lives in a tiny town in Central Texas, about 50 miles from Waco.

 

[CatNipRules]

Thank you for joining in! It is interesting! What part of NC was your husband from? We live in the foothills between Boone and Winston-Salem. My Dad lives in a tiny town in Central Texas, about 50 miles from Waco.

He was born in Raleigh.

My mom lives in Conroe, TX.

 

[jchurch0409]

ADRs

​

Hello everyone! I don't really have a lot of Disney updates. Our ADR date is coming up soon! Even though we are only getting the QS Dining plan this time, there are a few reservations I want to make. So here goes!

1) Beaches and Cream---In our 2015 trip, we decided late in the game to make a reservation here for the Kitchen Sink. Well, with 9 people it is not the easiest place to get a reservation after 180 days at a decent time. We were able to score two reservations for 4 people each, at some awful, late hour. By the day of, we were so exhausted that we ended up canceling. So this time we plan to split up into a couple different reservations and try again!

2) BOG Lunch---We did dinner here last time and really enjoyed it! We are hoping to get lunch here on Friday, Sept. 14.

3) BBB---Not a dining reservation, but hope to get a pre-park opening reservation here for Shayda and Piper. We scored an awesome one last time at 7:50 and 7:55 am. They loved it! We had Gabriel and Drake signed up for the knight package as well. Drake loved it, but Gabe refused. He has sensory issues and just wouldn't agree. So this time, we decided to skip the appointments for the boys! We are planning this for Sunday, Sept 9 or Tuesday, Sept 11.

 

[CatNipRules]

Beaches and Cream is the one place I'm hoping to eat at during my trip. I've heard a lot of good things about the ice cream there. I've never even been to the boardwalk before.

We did BOG for dinner last year and we enjoyed it. I think I was getting sick so it wasn't my favorite meal of the trip or maybe it was because we were on the deluxe dining plan and we were a little sick of eating so mypch by that point of the trip. Lol.

 

[MissMaryQC]

Hi!
Popped over from my PTR, you have such a cute family! And how nice you all vacation together. We tried to plan that for 2017, but when Irma hit it all fell apart! Hopefully we’ll have better luck, weather wise, this year!

Your shirts are so cute, and the dresses are a
Darling! Nice that they’re cotton!

Can’t wait to see how the plans come along, maybe we’ll be in the same parks on the same day!

 

[jchurch0409]

2017 One Day TR---Day 1
​

Since I don't have a lot of updates on my current PTR, I thought I would share some details from our short trip last year! For our 2017 family vacation, we decided on our first cruise as a family! My husband, myself, and my Mom had all been on cruises before. This was to be the first with kids! We were sailing on a Carnival cruise out of Jacksonville, FL. We decided that we couldn't travel to Florida without visiting Disney. Caiden had never been since we went before he officially joined our family. He is my nephew but we adopted him in 2015. So on with the trip! We left out on August 17. We planned to camp at Fort Wilderness from August 17-21. We did this for a couple of reasons.

1) We were already spending a chunk of change on our cruise.
2) We may end up camping this year (2018) if we don't get free dining. With 10 of us going, it is more cost efficient to camp. So we wanted to give camping at Disney a trial run!

I wasn't planning on writing a report for this trip, so I didn't take great notes.

We decided to keep it secret that we were going camping at Disney from the kids. We left out about 7:00 am on Thursday morning. We witnessed (and stopped to help) a horrible car accident in SC right before lunch. We were right behind it and saw it happen. My husband and step-dad, along with other men ran to help the men in the truck. I won't go into details, but here is a link to the article. It was a very sobering start to our vacation. http://walterborolive.com/2017/08/update-fatal-crash-on-interstate-news-the-press-and-standard/

We were ahead of the wreck so didn't have to wait for traffic to clear. Once we were able to leave the scene, we stopped for lunch. We had packed a picnic of BBQ sandwiches.

2017-08-17_14-47-07_909 by Lunch time!

2017-08-17_15-02-40_940 by Podcasts for the win!

According to the timestamp, we saw this at about 3:30!

2017-08-17_15-27-06_180 by Tiffany, on Flickr

We got the text at about 4:45 that our campsite was ready! We were staying in a tent site. We got Site #2062. This site was great! It was right across from a comfort station and a bus stop! It was an easy walk to the pool as well.

Here is the video of when they realized where we were camping at!

2017-08-17_19-45-49_000 by Tiffany, on Flickr

It looks like we arrived at the campground about 8:00 pm. I know we had stopped several times after getting into Florida to get groceries and supper. We set the tent up quickly and went to bed shortly after!

 

[jchurch0409]

Day 2
​

We got up about 7:30 the next morning. We only purchased 1 park day tickets to MK. This day we were going to enjoy the pool and do some resort exploring in the evening!

Sleepyheads!
Sleeping

Playing in the sand while breakfast was cooking!



After breakfast, we hit up the pool. My kids were super excited that there was a pool with a slide!







The kids loved the pool games!



Continued in the next post...

 

[jchurch0409]

Day 2---Part 2
​

After the pool, we headed back to the campground to get ready for an evening out. About 4:30 we headed to the MK boat! We were going to catch the monorail to the Polynesian!

First time ever riding a boat at Disney!




Simon was so excited for the monorail! They all loved catching a glimpse of MK!



At the Polynesian, we decided to walk around and explore. We happened to wander in just in time for the Torch Lighting Ceremony! It was awesome!



After watching that we decided we had to get some Dole Whips!!



Then we just looked around at the shops! Next stop was Disney Springs for some shopping and dinner! I cannot remember for the life of me what we ate!

 

[jchurch0409]

Day 3: MK Day!
​

We were up early this morning! We didn't tell the kids until after breakfast that we were actually going into a park! They thought we were just camping before the cruise. We were on the bus to the boat at 8:00 and on the boat at 8:15.


https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/

We were through security and on Main Street at 8:50. We made our way over to catch a bit of the welcome show. We were headed to Tomorrowland to ride Space Mountain!

Caiden's first photo with Cinderella's Castle!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/
Drake and Me
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/

We hopped in line for Space Mountain. Since Simon was too short, we got a Rider Swap for later. While everyone was riding, Stitch came out for an M&G. He is one of Simon's favorite! So we got in line for that.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/

Gabriel was not a huge fan of Space Moutain since it was in the dark.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/

Caiden loved it, even if it doesn't look like it!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/

After riding Space Mountain, we had a FP+ for Peter Pan. We love this ride! Once we finished on there, we headed over to ride Haunted Mansion. Haunted Mansion is one of my top 5 favorite things at Disney!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pipersmom2009photography/

Continued in the next post!

 

[jchurch0409]

Hi!
Popped over from my PTR, you have such a cute family! And how nice you all vacation together. We tried to plan that for 2017, but when Irma hit it all fell apart! Hopefully we’ll have better luck, weather wise, this year!



Your shirts are so cute, and the dresses are a
Darling! Nice that they’re cotton!

Thank you!!
Can’t wait to see how the plans come along, maybe we’ll be in the same parks on the same day!

 

[jchurch0409]

Day 3---Part 2
​

After riding HM, we headed over to IASW. We all love this ride! It was super HOT and humid on this day, so it was nice to relax! The wait wasn't long at all. Next up was our FP+ for 7DMT. Simon was too small to ride this back in 2015. So this was the first time for him, my Mom, and Caiden! It was awesome!





After our fast pass, we rode Under the Sea. We stopped for a snack of popcorn and LeFou's Brew. Yum!




We headed over to ride POTC. I wasn't expecting the ride photo!



Next up was Splash Mountain! Let me just start by saying that I do not like "thrill" rides. In 2015 I was too scared to ride Splash Mountain. Simon was too small that time as well. This time, he wanted me to ride it with him. I have to say, I liked it! I didn't love the drop, but I will ride again this year! Mom (Carla) was getting really worn down by the heat at this point. She decided to go sit in the shade and take a break.



We had lunch at Pecos Bill's. I know a couple of the kids ordered the nachos and a couple ordered the corn dog nuggets. Not sure what else we had. After lunch, we hitched a ride on the train to Fantasy Land! We love the train! This is where my memory gets a little fuzzy. I know we got in line to meet Goofy and Donald around 2:30. Goofy is Caiden's favorite, so we made this one of the few M&G we did this trip!


I know we did Carousel of Progress at some point because this is my hubby's favorite ride. Then we had a FP+ for Jungle Cruise around 4:45. This was closed during or 2015 trip. We all really liked it! We also rode the Magic Carpets. My Mom was really feeling bad by this point. She decided to head back to the campsite to relax and cool off.

We will finish the day off in the next post!

 

[jchurch0409]

Day 3: Part 3
​

After my Mom left, we headed over to do Stitch and Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor. Shayda was chosen to talk! We always have a good time at this show!



Then we decided to grab dinner Pinocchio Village Haus. Most of us had the pizzas. After dinner, we had a few Photopass pictures made.




We rode Winnie the Pooh next. Then we decided to split up. The guys headed to ride BTMRR. Shayda, Piper, and I went to meet Elena! I was so excited for this! I love Elena.



The line to meet Tiana and Rapunzel was empty, so we decided to meet them as well! I didn't get to meet Tiana on our last trip! She is one of my favorites!



When we finished the meets, we decided to ride the Tea Cups. It was a walk on! The girls rode it a second time without having to get off. I was good with one ride lol.



We were getting pretty tired at this point. It was about 9:30. We decided to walk to the mister in Tomorrowland and wait for the guys to come meet us there.



They got there about 5 minutes later. We decided it was time to head back to the campsites. My step-dad (Jason) decided to take Caiden and Drake on Space Mountain with the rider swap pass from that morning. For some reason, there is no ride photo. He also took them on the Tomorrowland Speedway. We took a few pictures and hit up a few shops on our way to the boat. It was a pretty decent wait once we got to the docks.

 

[jchurch0409]

Days 4 & 5
​

The next morning we slept in a little. It was a pretty lazy day! I don't think I have any pictures! I know we went to the pool most of the day. My Mom and I rode the bus over to P & J's Southern Takeout. Right when we got there, the sky opened up! It was a huge thunderstorm. We waited it out inside. We shared the Lone Ranger meal. It was delicious. When we got back to the campsite, we did some laundry and packed up as much as possible before heading to bed.

The next morning was an early one. I had been up sick during the night. We packed up the campsite, which took a lot longer than we thought it would! Then we checked out and headed to Jacksonville for our cruise! I have to say, camping at Disney wasn't all that bad!

I will end this sidetrack with a few photos from our cruise! Tomorrow is ADR day! I will be back then with our regularly scheduled programming!

 

[jchurch0409]

ADR Updates!
​

Today was our 180-day mark! Here is what we got!

9/7/2018---Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian @ 2:05 (Tiffany, Piper, Shayda, & Mom)
*We may end up canceling this or changing it. It is our arrival day, so not sure how well it will work out.

9/9/2018---Pre-Park Opening BBB Appointment @ 8:10 for Piper and Shayda

9/11/2018---Beaches and Cream for 5 (Me, Jonathan, Piper, Caiden, Gabe) @ 5:20
Beaches and Cream for 4 (Mom, Jason, Shayda, & Drake) @ 5:30
Beaches and Cream for 4 (Emilee, Judd, Nola, & Simon) @ 5:40

9/14/2018---BOG Lunch for 10 @ 12:25

Thankfully we were able to get everything we wanted! Beaches and Cream is just for the kitchen sink. We had really wanted to do this in 2015 and weren't able!

Now we just have one more thing to schedule! My birthday is right before the trip (August 24.) I told my hubby that I wanted to do the "Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour" as my birthday gift. We are hoping to get it for 9/11/2018 @ 8:00. I will be doing this solo since the kids aren't old enough yet.

 

[missjackiemcg]

I just stumbled onto your report and caught up. Camping sounds like so much fun, but I'm always nervous to book it! Did you find it uncomfortable to sleep outside in the FL heat or was it OK? The pictures from your cruise are so sweet!! Can't wait to read more.

 

[CatNipRules]

Finally got all caught up.

we have a love/hate relationship with camping. It seems like every time we camp, the sky opens up. Like gushing rain. LOL!! Every time we went camping as a kid my dad could count on it raining. Loved camping and the memories of it. LOL!! Even if we were soaked to the bone.

I'm excited to eat at Beaches and Cream. I've heard a lot of good things about it. Which is why it's on my list for this trip.