Week After Turkey Day Shenanigans

[Meeko5]

Well it took me 30 minutes, but I got the Wishes fireworks party booked on 11/30 with plaza garden viewing. The CM kept telling me no availability but we figured out he was looking under the holiday fireworks dessert party. Oops. This is one of the bummers about paying with gift cards is that you have to call to book things that require pre-paying.

Yay!!!

I've decided not to tell DH about this and keep it a surprise. I cashed in some money from surveys and with my $50 Disney reward it basically is paid for. He would think it was silly to do but I know once we get there and he sees the crowds he will be so happy to have this!

I just love surprises haha

 

[DisneyGB]

Well it took me 30 minutes, but I got the Wishes fireworks party booked on 11/30 with plaza garden viewing. The CM kept telling me no availability but we figured out he was looking under the holiday fireworks dessert party. Oops. This is one of the bummers about paying with gift cards is that you have to call to book things that require pre-paying.

Ok, now I can see that there is availability for it and now I'm considering it. But I'm already doing the Jingle Bell / Jingle BAM. Is 2 dessert parties in a trip overkill? Are you doing both?

Wait, decision made for me - there was just availability a few minutes ago and now there isn't. Maybe you got the last seats!

 

[JamieOak]

Ok, now I can see that there is availability for it and now I'm considering it. But I'm already doing the Jingle Bell / Jingle BAM. Is 2 dessert parties in a trip overkill? Are you doing both?

Wait, decision made for me - there was just availability a few minutes ago and now there isn't. Maybe you got the last seats!

I am doing the JBJB dessert party and the Wishes plaza garden dessert party. I was contemplating the Illuminations dessert party too, but that one is harder to justify. Epcot has many good places to view it and many good places to get desserts and drinks!

I think it comes down to what you can afford really. Lots of people say it is worth it for the food/drinks and the reserved viewing. But others say they would rather spend money on snacks and sit down to stake out a spot early. Me being new to this whole Disney planning thing, I like the idea of not having to worry about staking out spots really early. But we are staking out spots on our MVMCP night as I do not have the holiday wishes dessert party booked and I will not. I don't like the fireworks view as much at the Terrace.

I just checked and there is still availability. I can put in a party of 20 and get availability. I think you should check again!

 

[Meeko5]

I am doing the JBJB dessert party and the Wishes plaza garden dessert party. I was contemplating the Illuminations dessert party too, but that one is harder to justify. Epcot has many good places to view it and many good places to get desserts and drinks!

I think it comes down to what you can afford really. Lots of people say it is worth it for the food/drinks and the reserved viewing. But others say they would rather spend money on snacks and sit down to stake out a spot early. Me being new to this whole Disney planning thing, I like the idea of not having to worry about staking out spots really early. But we are staking out spots on our MVMCP night as I do not have the holiday wishes dessert party booked and I will not. I don't like the fireworks view as much at the Terrace.

I just checked and there is still availability. I can put in a party of 20 and get availability. I think you should check again!

I am only doing the 1, I was going to do the Star Wars one but since that isn't an option now this is it. We will have plenty of time to see JBJB on our full DHS day now that it is nightly, so I think we can stake out a decent spot early-ish. But with 2 kids I don't want to have to wait a long time for a show on our busiest day, so the plaza dessert party is perfect for us. And bonus, it's cheaper haha.

We usually don't splurge on stuff like this, anywhere. last trip (first with kids) we had an awesome time doing no extras at all! We also didn't get to see wishes at all last trip, and that is a priority for me this time.

 

[Marissa227]

Right now we are doing both the Wishes Dessert Party with Plaza Garden viewing and the JBJB dessert party. This is mainly because I don't want to have to stake out a spot and wait for a long time with a 2 and a 4 year old. Also, because we had initially planned on doing the Pirates and Pals voyage but after watching youtube videos with my 4 year old, he insisted that he would much rather watch fireworks from the grass than from a boat. I'm not sure what his reasoning was there, because it looked like a lot of fun to me, but it is a long time for the little ones to sit still on the boat, so we're just going to do the Plaza Garden view instead. It's a little (lot) more than I had intended on spending for dessert parties, but hoping it will be worth it. If not, we will have learned a lesson for our next trip!

 

[BDFmom]

we're doing both parties.... I'm doing them because i think they will be fun and I'm hoping that the less crowded areas will make the experiences more special.

Actually we are doing a ton of extras... I'm trying to fit 9 years of trips into one...

 

[Candycane83]

Right now we are doing both the Wishes Dessert Party with Plaza Garden viewing and the JBJB dessert party. This is mainly because I don't want to have to stake out a spot and wait for a long time with a 2 and a 4 year old. Also, because we had initially planned on doing the Pirates and Pals voyage but after watching youtube videos with my 4 year old, he insisted that he would much rather watch fireworks from the grass than from a boat. I'm not sure what his reasoning was there, because it looked like a lot of fun to me, but it is a long time for the little ones to sit still on the boat, so we're just going to do the Plaza Garden view instead. It's a little (lot) more than I had intended on spending for dessert parties, but hoping it will be worth it. If not, we will have learned a lesson for our next trip!

I have a two year old and I have the JBJB party and MVMCP holiday wishes dessert party... thinking about Illuminations too but can't seem to justify it... Waiting with small kids seem to be a great motivation for all these dessert parties!

 

[missnikki411]

Jealous of everyone doing all these dessert parties! We've always wanted to do one for Wishes, but at Tommorowland Terrace which is so hard to get. The garden plaza viewing is tempting, but MVMCP is our extra for this trip, so I can't justify it. Plus, even on busier nights, we usually don't have a problem finding a good spot along Main Street only 15 minutes before Wishes...we'll see how it goes on that crazy 11/30 night! I would have absolutely done the party for the SW fireworks (sigh).

 

[Meeko5]

Right now we are doing both the Wishes Dessert Party with Plaza Garden viewing and the JBJB dessert party. This is mainly because I don't want to have to stake out a spot and wait for a long time with a 2 and a 4 year old. Also, because we had initially planned on doing the Pirates and Pals voyage but after watching youtube videos with my 4 year old, he insisted that he would much rather watch fireworks from the grass than from a boat. I'm not sure what his reasoning was there, because it looked like a lot of fun to me, but it is a long time for the little ones to sit still on the boat, so we're just going to do the Plaza Garden view instead. It's a little (lot) more than I had intended on spending for dessert parties, but hoping it will be worth it. If not, we will have learned a lesson for our next trip!

yay!! What day is your plaza dessert party??

 

[Meeko5]

Jealous of everyone doing all these dessert parties! We've always wanted to do one for Wishes, but at Tommorowland Terrace which is so hard to get. The garden plaza viewing is tempting, but MVMCP is our extra for this trip, so I can't justify it. Plus, even on busier nights, we usually don't have a problem finding a good spot along Main Street only 15 minutes before Wishes...we'll see how it goes on that crazy 11/30 night! I would have absolutely done the party for the SW fireworks (sigh).

it wont let me view your spreadsheet dangit!!

 

[twix516]

I know you can modify if you arrive and don't need the FP at that time, but I'm not sure about rebooking for later. I *think* you can only have ADR's for one park at a time in MDE, so in your case you would have to use 3 FP in AK before you can book a 4th for MK. I believe the only exception to this is if you book only 1 originally in your first park, then you can book in your 2nd park when you use the 1st.

Paging @Iowamomof4 because I think she knows more about this from reading her previous posts...

Thank you! This is all so confusing to me...

 

[goav2000]

Well it took me 30 minutes, but I got the Wishes fireworks party booked on 11/30 with plaza garden viewing. The CM kept telling me no availability but we figured out he was looking under the holiday fireworks dessert party. Oops. This is one of the bummers about paying with gift cards is that you have to call to book things that require pre-paying.

I paid for our MVMCP tickets online with gift cards. But I had to go to the gift card website ahead of time and combine 4x$50 to do it.

 

[twix516]

Find the "Everything FP+ thread" or something along those lines and you'll get answers to all of your questions. There is even a thread about FP strategies for visiting more than one park in a day that is immensely helpful for this question. The short answer is, you CAN make just 1 FP in park #1, then as soon as you tap your magicband to redeem that fastpass you can immediately hop on the MDE app and make your remaining 2 fastpasses in park #2. However, I think you have to have only made one fastpass. I don't think you can, at that point, cancel those other 2 fastpasses (if you had made them in park #1) and immediately book them for park #2. That's where I get fuzzy. I'll go grab a link to the two threads I'm talking about and come back and put them on this post.

Here's the one that will be most helpful for your specific question: http://www.disboards.com/threads/fp...rk-hopping-additional-tier-1-booking.3538258/

Thanks so much! Going to have to figure this out...good thing we still have over a month!

 

[Iowamomof4]

I paid for our MVMCP tickets online with gift cards. But I had to go to the gift card website ahead of time and combine 4x$50 to do it.

MVMCP gives many more options for paying online than other types of reservations. I was able to use my DVA to pay for our MVMCP online, but had to call to use anything other than a credit card for EMM.

 

[missnikki411]

it wont let me view your spreadsheet dangit!!

I know, the PDF wouldn't work. I took a picture of it. You can't really make out how amazing it is like this. Colors, Disney fonts, pictures!

 

[JamieOak]

we're doing both parties.... I'm doing them because i think they will be fun and I'm hoping that the less crowded areas will make the experiences more special.

Actually we are doing a ton of extras... I'm trying to fit 9 years of trips into one...

I feel the same way about trying to cram a few years worth of trips into one! Remember this is our honeymoon...4 years belated. We haven't been on a vacation in 5 years. So take my advise on anything with that little tidbit along with it.

I paid for our MVMCP tickets online with gift cards. But I had to go to the gift card website ahead of time and combine 4x$50 to do it.

MVMCP gives many more options for paying online than other types of reservations. I was able to use my DVA to pay for our MVMCP online, but had to call to use anything other than a credit card for EMM.

I didn't even know you could pay with a gift card for MVMCP tickets online. I ended up booking those on the phone, but only because I already had to call to book the Wild Africa Trek that you can't book online no matter what form of payment. So I just did it all in one phone call.

 

[Meeko5]

I know, the PDF wouldn't work. I took a picture of it. You can't really make out how amazing it is like this. Colors, Disney fonts, pictures!

ok THAT is awesome and I love it!! Good work!

 

[DisneyGB]

I am doing the JBJB dessert party and the Wishes plaza garden dessert party. I was contemplating the Illuminations dessert party too, but that one is harder to justify. Epcot has many good places to view it and many good places to get desserts and drinks!

I think it comes down to what you can afford really. Lots of people say it is worth it for the food/drinks and the reserved viewing. But others say they would rather spend money on snacks and sit down to stake out a spot early. Me being new to this whole Disney planning thing, I like the idea of not having to worry about staking out spots really early. But we are staking out spots on our MVMCP night as I do not have the holiday wishes dessert party booked and I will not. I don't like the fireworks view as much at the Terrace.

I just checked and there is still availability. I can put in a party of 20 and get availability. I think you should check again!

Well you're a bad influence. I just checked and booked it! I can't stop!

 

[Meeko5]

Well you're a bad influence. I just checked and booked it! I can't stop!

the 11/30 plaza view dessert party?! yaaaaaasssss.



Disney e-friends are so good at spending your money

 

[JamieOak]

I know, the PDF wouldn't work. I took a picture of it. You can't really make out how amazing it is like this. Colors, Disney fonts, pictures!

Awesome! I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I love spreadsheets.

Well you're a bad influence. I just checked and booked it! I can't stop!

....and that's how I feel about that.