Trip with my BFF

[rosegoldmonorail]

Hi all! My name is Julia and I'm 22 years old. I'm an AP and in August I'll be taking my 11th trip to WDW with my BFF! This isn't going to be an exciting PTR to read, because I'll mostly be using it to organize my thoughts, but if you want to read, welcome!

Who We Are:
Julia (me), 22. Disney FANATIC. Loves all thing fairytales, princesses, and Magic Kingdom. Cries at every parade and fireworks show. Total Disney nerd.

Anna (BFF), 20 (will be 21 for the trip woohoo!!) Only been to Disney twice and it was for softball tournaments so she didn't get the full "Disney experience." Not a Disney fan. Doesn't even have a favorite princess (gasp!)

My main goal this trip is to turn Anna into a Disney-loving maniac! But that probably won't happen, so my second goal is to just have fun ;-)

When & Where:
For privacy reasons I'm not going to say our exact trip dates, just that it's sometime in August. (I will say that it's before SGE opens so we won't be dealing with those crowds thank god.)

We'll be staying in a preferred room at Pop Century. When the summer AP deals dropped I was able to upgrade our room plus save us an extra $100. I stayed at Pop in March for the first time and I absolutely adore it. For the price point, it really can't be beat. (And this is coming from a deluxe-resort snob.)

Misc.:
We aren't doing the dining plan. Anna's not really a big eater, so it doesn't make sense for her. Plus we want to do a couple sit-downs, but not enough for the regular dining plan, and more than for the quick-service dining plan to make sense.

I'm not sure if we'll do rope-drop to close. Anna says that's what she wants to do, but as a Disney vet, this is going to get exhausting after like the second day. I'm all for going back to the hotel midday and resting for an hour or two, or hanging by the pool. After all, this is a vacation, and it's supposed to be relaxing!

We're also not doing waterparks. I'm all for going to the waterparks when it's a longer stay, but we'll only be there five days so I want to make sure we get everything done in the theme parks.

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

reserved

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

Fastpass (Monday, arrival day)

Ah, planning fastpasses. No matter how many times I check the EMH and park hours calendar, I always seem to mess something up. Our fastpass window didn't open yet, but I want everything laid out so I have time to go back and play with it if need be.


We don't have airfare yet, but I like getting there as early as possible, so without any flight delays, we should be in the parks by 12/1ish. Of course, we have to do Magic Kingdom first!! I'm crazy and every trip HAS to start in Magic Kingdom. Then it really feels like you're in Disney

Anyway, this is what I'm thinking:

Peter Pan's Flight 1 PM
Splash Mountain 2PM
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 3 PM

EDIT: Had to change the times for these because I completely forgot we had a dining reservation at Via Nappoli! So Epcot at night it is!

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

Fastpass (Tuesday)

I'll be honest, SWGE ruined my plans. We were originally booked for the week it opened (before we knew about this) and would've been there for Food & Wine. F&W is my favorite festival (yes i like it better than flower & garden!!!) so I'm so sad we're gonna miss it. Plus it would've been really cool for Anna to have gone to her first Epcot festival! But oh well.

Anyway, Tuesday will be one of our couple Epcot days. This will be our main one though, and I could see this being a rope drop to closing day, especially since there's EMH till 11. The reason we plan on visiting Epcot a lot is because we want to drink around the world! Anna turns 21 in June, so I think this will be the perfect park for us.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Living with the Land 11 AM
Mission: Space 12 PM
Test Track 1 PM

Now if I were going solo, I would swap Test Track for Frozen, and Mission: Space for Spaceship Earth. I think Frozen is the best dark-ride on property, and hands down my favorite ride ever, but Anna wants to do Test Track. I know we could so single-rider and only wait like 5 minutes, but Anna said she wants to ride it with me. Also, I've never gone on Mission: Space before, and I'm too scared to ride it by myself, so this is why I need Anna to finally do it. My dad rode it once when I was too short to ride it, and he said he would never go on it again, so this is why I've never rode it all these years. Also, I'm gonna schedule Test Track for after 9, that way we have time to ride Spaceship Earth as we're walking into the parks. Then hopefully once we're done with Living with the Land, we'll be able to score a fastpass for either Soarin' or Frozen. But I don't mind waiting in lines

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

Fastpass (Wednesday)

I think Wednesday will be our Animal Kingdom day (at least in the morning.) I want to get on SDD more than anything, as I still haven't had the chance to ride it, and I feel like I'll have better luck getting it for Thursday, but we'll see.

So here's what I'm thinking for Wednesday.

Flight of Passage: 11 AM
Safari: 12 PM
Expedition Everest: 1 PM

I want to rope drop Navi River Journey (as long as I get a FoP FP.) Navi River is probably the second best dark-ride (okay it's a lot more detailed than Frozen, but FEA will always be #1 in my heart.) Once our FP for EE is done, I want to try and get one for Kali River, but if that's a no go, then I don't care that much.

EDIT: had to up the times by an hour because i forgot we had breakfast reservations for Crystal Palace. Sadly, this didn't fit into our plans :-( so I had to swap it for Tusker House breakfast. I've never been to Tusker House but hopefully it holds up!

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

Fastpass (Thursday)

Our last full day at Disney. I'm thinking we could spend the day in Epcot, then go DHS at night and see Fantasmic. I still haven't seen it yet! And when that's done we could head to the Boardwalk and explore for a bit. Anyway, here's what I'm planning in terms of Fastpass -

SDD 4 PM
ToT 6 PM
Rock n' Rollercoaster 7 PM

aaaand as I'm typing this I just realized I forgot to take into account my two dining reservations, UGH! See, I told you I always mess something up! Hopefully they align with our plans

 

[Newsies]

Hi Julia! I'm following along

I'll be at the parks in August before SWGE opens, too! Your plans look great so far.

 

[TinkAriel111]

Just now following along!
I will also be taking my best friend to Disney is August before SWGE! Your plans look great. We too are staying at pop century but we are taking advantage of the free dining we were able to get! can wait to see what else you share!

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

Day 1 Plans (Monday)

I have homework I should be doing, but I love procrastinating so I think I will plan out our days instead! I absolutely love planning, and I think it's important to have somewhat of a schedule, especially for a place as big as Disney World. Anna has no interest in planning, so she put me in charge of taking care of everything, which I am actually very happy about

So for arrival day, right now I'm looking at flights that would have us landing at around 9 in the morning. However, this means takeoff would be 5:30, which means we'll have to get to the airport for 3:30, which means waking up at 2:30! So I need to plan for a mid-afternoon break. No sense in wearing ourselves out on the first day of vacation.

I'm going to plan that we'll be at Magic Kingdom for 12:30. We'll hit up Peter Pan's Flight which I'll hopefully have a fastpass for at 1 PM, then after grab lunch at Pinocchio's Village Haus. Next we'll finish off our fastpasses, and I want to leave the park by 3:30... It's going to be hard, especially with the parade going on, but I really think we're going to need a nap. My last trip I had the same arrival schedule, and I was utterly exhausted by 2 PM.

I want to be back at our room by 4:30. This will give us about an hour and a half to nap, and then I want to leave for Epcot by 6. We will take it slow the rest of the night, and luckily, we have a dining reservation at Via Napoli for 7:35. I'm hoping dinner will be over before 9 so we'll have time to see Illuminations, because this will probably be my last time seeing the show. Then after Illuminations we'll head back to Pop, get a good night's sleep, and be ready for day 2

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

Day 2 Plans (Tuesday)

Holy cow, 10 days until fastpass day! The time is flying! Like I said above, Tuesday will be our Epcot day. Depending on when we get there depends on how tired we are. Either for opening or for our first fastpass. We'll play it by ear. Here's what I want to get accomplished this day:

• Ride every ride (EXCEPT FIGMENT!)
• Drink around the world
• Meet Anna & Elsa, Alice, Aurora, and Mulan

Now, I'm thinking that drinking around the world will start after lunch. I also had the idea we could go to the Poly for lunch and try one of those lime dole whip margaritas! But I don't want to be overzealous with my planning, however we literally have 14 hours to do everything...

 

[rosegoldmonorail]

wow fastpass day is tomorrow! i don't want to plan anymore days until i know for sure what time i get the fastpasses for. i'm kind of nervous about FoP and SDD... I think SDD should be fine since it's far out enough and for later in the day, but I need FoP relatively early... this is also my first time in three trips i won't be making a frozen fastpass! :O

right now my strategy for tomorrow is to get FoP first, then SDD, and then the rest. i'm really not concerned about the rest, as i should be fine getting them, but i really want Anna to experience FoP, and I've never ridden SDD! so I really need those two rides.

also, anna's birthday is next monday! which means i need to get her a gift. i was thinking about getting her stuff for our trip, but like i said, she's not a disney geek so idk what to get her. i know i'm gonna buy her a black magic band, but i don't know what else... anyone have any ideas?