What? Do you think this is your BIRTHDAY or something? A September 2023 PTR (UPDATED 9/7)

[MrsSaraG]

Yes, yes I do.

Hi! Welcome back to another PTR (I’m pretty good at completing PTRs, not so much TRs)! Before I get too far ahead, let me introduce myself!


I’m Sara! I’m a 30-something Disney fanatic and wish I was one of those people who could move to Orlando and be in the parks all the time. (And by that, I mean my DH has no desire to do so, so PA is where we will stay.) This trip will be my 6th year in a row going to the parks. I’ve gone with my family, with just my DD, and solo, but I only seem to go to WDW during Halloween or Christmas time. Seriously, I’ve only been between Sept-Dec. I guess I need to change that one of these years.


Also going on this trip with me is my DH and DD. My DD will be 10 at the time of this trip (her birthday is in 2 weeks, where does the time go??) which means she will no longer get the kid pricing. Cue sad violin.

Now, before I get into the trip details (like where we are staying) let me explain how this trip started. Because we weren’t going to go WDW this year .

My DH wanted to take a trip off because we’ve taken a bunch of big trips recently (like Sweden, Egypt, and Alaska) and we put a bunch of money into some remodeling of our house. Okay fine, I agreed begrudgingly. Then one particularly cold February night, when my seasonal depression was kicking me while I was down, I said to my DH “I’m waking up in WDW on my birthday this year. I’m taking DD and you can come with me or not, but this is happening.” Or something along those lines.

And that’s the story of how we are going to WDW for my birthday.

Now for the details:
September 16-23
(My birthday is September 19.)


We are staying at POR in a Royal Room! Because it’s my birthday. And also, because I’ve always wanted to stay in one of those rooms. It seemed like the perfect excuse to wake up next to princesses.

We are flying Frontier because even with paying for bags and seats, it was still the cheapest option for a direct flight. (And travel hack: they had a promotion where you could buy their first level of status, which includes a free carry-on bag. That was cheaper than paying for a carry-on bag!) If I wasn’t flying with DD10, I wouldn’t even care about where we sit and would skip paying for seats. But since I want to make sure she sits with us; seats assignments are a must.

Stay tuned because in the next few posts I will go over ADRs (our 60 days opens one week from today!) and other tentative plans (such as a park reservations).

Table of Contents
Tentative Plans
Day 1 - Travel Day
Day 2 - HS & MNSSHP
Day 3 - AK
Day 4 - Epcot
Day 5 - Resort Day
Day 6 - MK
Day 7 - HS

 

[MrsSaraG]

I want to preface our park plans with a little tidbit of info. Our DD does not yet know about trip. We are surprising her for her birthday. So she will know SOON, but as of when I’m posting this, she does not. What this means is that planning is entirely up to me. My DH doesn’t care about any of it and just goes along for the ride. My DD DOES care, so I keep asking her “Next time we go to WDW, would you want to do this or this?” Hypothetically speaking.

Our park days however came down to a few things. One, I rely on Touring Plans for their crowd predictions (taken with a grain of salt, I know). Also, MNSSHP played a factor, as well as, what park did I want to visit on my birthday?

I knew I wanted to plan one resort day mid trip just to sleep in. We are park open to park close kind of people, so I knew a day in the middle where we could relax would be key.

And then MNSSHP went on sale and kind of thwarted some of my carefully laid plans. Not that the schedule was different, it was exactly as predicted. But the pricing of said party made a big change. Instead of doing MNSSHP on our resort day, we are pairing it with a different park, because it saved us about $90.

So here are our official park reservations and tentative plans:

Saturday – Arrival Day!
Land in MCO around 11:30 AM, get bags from baggage claim, and take a Lyft to POR (we are doing Lyft because DH and I each have a $10 credit, which in theory should make a Lyft cheaper than 3 people on Mears Connect. I know this may differ in execution, but it will be what it will be.)

Fingers crossed this means we can arrive to the resort by 1:00. Grab some lunch at the Riverside Mill Food Court and then explore both POR and POFQ resorts. I also film resort tours so that is my plan at this time. Then hit the pool for the rest of the day and have dinner at Boatwright’s. Get some sleep for the next day!

Sunday – Hollywood Studios
We will be purchasing Genie+ for this day and getting as much of the park done before 3:00. Then we are going to head over to MK for MNSSHP. Why not do MK all day (which is what we typically do)? Well, because Touring Plans predicts HS to be lowers crowds on Sunday lol. And also, I don’t want to do the same park back-to-back days and based on the rest of our trip, this is what works. Plus, we get 1.5 days in MK and 1.5 days in HS this way.

If I can swing it, I would like an ADR for Rodeo Roundup for lunch.

Monday – Animal Kingdom
Since we are doing MNSSHP the night before, we will likely sleep in some this day. We do not plan to get Genie+ so no need to be up early for that. We like FOP, and we have RD it in the past, but this trip if we miss it, we miss it.

I’m going to try to get an ADR for California Grill for dinner for the fireworks. Then back to the resort for bed.

Tuesday – My Birthday!
And I chose Epcot for the Food and Wine Festival for my birthday!
I absolutely love the Food and Wine Festival and can’t wait to spend the day eating around the WS and riding GoG (the best ride!)

I’m going to use all the luck and pixie dust I can muster to try and get an ADR for the Space 220 Lounge today. Literally any time of the day is fine. I just want a drink and an app. I know the chances aren’t super high, so no big deal if we don’t get it, but I’m still going to try.

Wednesday – Resort Day
Sleep in. Hit the pool. Relax.
Lunch at Sassagoula Floatworks?
ADR for Storybook Dining for dinner. Mini golf after. DD loves mini golf and we haven’t done the Fantasia course yet.

Thursday – Magic Kingdom
RD to park close. No plans other than Tron for sure. No ADRs.

Friday – Hollywood Studios
One of my hypothetical questions to DD was “If you could go to any park twice in once trip, what would it be?” and HS is what she picked. She’s helping to plan and she doesn’t even know it yet!

We haven’t eaten at Prime Time 50s Dine or Sci-Fi yet so I’m going for one of these for dinner. I want Sci-Fi, but the Fantasmic Package with Prime Time is looking pretty good, so IDK yet. I guess I will decide next week! I also want to get a reservation to Oga’s at park close.

Saturday – Departure Day
The worst day of all. But I try to get a little bit more Disney magic before we leave, so I always book a character breakfast. This time we want to try Cape May Café.

Then we will take a Lyft at around 1:00 back to MCO. We have PreCheck so I’m not worried about security. Boarding is at 2:45ish, so we should have plenty of time.

And then have Disney Depression until I start planning the next trip.

7 days until ADRs - I will update when I have those nailed down.
67 days until POR

 

[Mle8308]

Have a great trip and happy birthday! We will be there at that same time, 9/12 through 9/23 at the WL! Not doing as much planning, we tend to go with the flow (we do have park reservations, at least I did that!). Have a few ADR's to book later on this week when our window opens. Looking forward to it!

 

[MrsSaraG]

Have a great trip and happy birthday! We will be there at that same time, 9/12 through 9/23 at the WL! Not doing as much planning, we tend to go with the flow (we do have park reservations, at least I did that!). Have a few ADR's to book later on this week when our window opens. Looking forward to it!

Thank you! I always say I'm not going to do as much planning, but I always do because I enjoy it so much. Oh well!

Enjoy your trip! I haven't been to the WL but it looks beautiful. If I can get a Storybook Dining ADR, I will finally get to see it!

 

[Mle8308]

Thank you! I always say I'm not going to do as much planning, but I always do because I enjoy it so much. Oh well!

Enjoy your trip! I haven't been to the WL but it looks beautiful. If I can get a Storybook Dining ADR, I will finally get to see it!

If you can't get into Storybook dining, you might want to try Geyser Point. It's the "bar" along the lake. They have a great burger on the menu and it's possible to do a walk up. If you go later in the evening, you can see the Electrical Water Pageant that passes by around 9:30pm, as well as some of the MK fireworks. It is a beautiful resort, my favorite on property.

 

[MrsSaraG]

If you can't get into Storybook dining, you might want to try Geyser Point. It's the "bar" along the lake. They have a great burger on the menu and it's possible to do a walk up. If you go later in the evening, you can see the Electrical Water Pageant that passes by around 9:30pm, as well as some of the MK fireworks. It is a beautiful resort, my favorite on property.

Thanks! I forgot about the Electrical Water Pageant so I definitely need to add that to my list regardless!

 

[absolutmey]

we're going the same week! your plan looks great

 

[MrsSaraG]

we're going the same week! your plan looks great

Thanks! September is a great time to go (minus the heat) because of Halloween and F&W! I'm very excited!

 

[MrsSaraG]

Tomorrow is ADR day! I've been spending the last couple of hours nailing down EXACTLY what reservations and times I want. And I made a switch, which is why I had to make a bunch of changes to make everything fit. We are taking out Boatwright's (who needs a low key evening at the resort?) and adding in the Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue!

Tomorrow I will begin updating with a more finalized plan, once I have my ADRs. Good luck to you with ADRs once your window opens!

 

[Bama Mom]

Plans sound gtreat so far. My birthday is Sept 17th and I'd love to wake up in Disney on my birthday one day. Hubby can't really do September because of work so it would have to be a solo trip or a girls trip though if it ever happens.

 

[MrsSaraG]

Plans sound gtreat so far. My birthday is Sept 17th and I'd love to wake up in Disney on my birthday one day. Hubby can't really do September because of work so it would have to be a solo trip or a girls trip though if it ever happens.

Thanks for following along! This will be the first time I've ever woken up in Disney on my birthday and I'm definitely looking forward to it. A solo trip is also a lot of fun (I did that last year) and worth looking into. For a birthday trip though, having some friends go might be a great way to do it! I'm sure you will someday!

 

[MrsSaraG]

It's ADR day! I was so excited I couldn't sleep. I woke up at 5:40 AM all on my own before my alarm went off and had to sneak downstairs to my office (to not wake my DD up – only one more week before we get to surprise her with the trip!) for my laptop. Spoiler alert: The desktop MDE wouldn't work this morning; it just wouldn't show my dates for my trip, so I ended up using my phone the whole time. I didn't even NEED to get out of bed.

I got almost EXACTLY what I wanted, which tells me there isn't really a demand for these restaurants (unlikely) or the week I'm going isn't going to be that busy. Fingers crossed for the latter.

Now that I have all our reservations made (and almost entirely concrete) I wanted to start writing down our plans day by day with all the logistics. Because I need to make sure I have those figured out. And if someone has a better way to get from Point A to Point B, let me know!

So up first is Travel Day!

We are flying Frontier nonstop (which is my favorite kind of stop). They recently just changed our flight and now we leave earlier. Which is kinda rough because none of us are morning people. I usually try to get flights around 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM so we aren’t getting up crazy early and can make it through the day. But that’s not the case this time. Our flight has been moved up to before 8 AM. Which is going to make the morning rough, but I think our excitement will get us through.

And at least we get into MCO around 10:30 AM now. We will be checking bags (which is something I almost never do) so I’m hoping to be done with baggage claim by around 11:00 AM. This might be wishful thinking, I know.

As I mentioned before, we will grab a rideshare to the resort since we have credits to use. With luck, we will be at POR with our bags dropped off at Bell Services by 12:00 PM! I’m assuming our room won’t be ready that early, which is completely understandable.

I’d like to grab lunch at the Riverside Mill Food Court and relax after traveling! I’m not sure if we will get resort mugs yet, but I think it’s likely since we will have this day and another day at the resort. It seems like we’d be able to get our money’s worth.

Since we’ve never been to either Port Orleans resort before, after lunch I want to walk around, get to know the grounds and film resort tours for my YouTube channel. I probably won’t spend a ton of time doing this as I know my DD will be itching to get to the pool.

We will have some pool time after that before getting ready for dinner. I’m hoping we get a solid 2 hours in, and if we are lucky, a short nap. (Note to self: make sure our swimsuits are with us in case our room isn’t ready.)

For dinner, we have reservations at the Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue! We’ve never been to FW so this is all new to us! I booked us the 8:30 show, which I know makes for a super late night, before a super long day the next morning, but I digress.

For transportation, my thoughts are take the bus around 7:00 PM to Magic Kingdom, and then hop on the boat to FW. That ought to get us to FW by around 8:00, correct? Then we can check in for our show. After the show, I plan to take the same transportation in reverse. Magic Kingdom is open until 10:00 PM this night. The transportation will still be running? Or is there a different option I should look into. Disney Springs as our connection point?

And depending on what time we get back, and IF he is still playing, I’d like to stop into River Roost to see Yehaw Bob for like 5 minutes.

It’s going to be a very fun, but very exhausting first day!

60 days until POR

 

[Mle8308]

It's ADR day! I was so excited I couldn't sleep. I woke up at 5:40 AM all on my own before my alarm went off and had to sneak downstairs to my office (to not wake my DD up – only one more week before we get to surprise her with the trip!) for my laptop. Spoiler alert: The desktop MDE wouldn't work this morning; it just wouldn't show my dates for my trip, so I ended up using my phone the whole time. I didn't even NEED to get out of bed.

I got almost EXACTLY what I wanted, which tells me there isn't really a demand for these restaurants (unlikely) or the week I'm going isn't going to be that busy. Fingers crossed for the latter.

Now that I have all our reservations made (and almost entirely concrete) I wanted to start writing down our plans day by day with all the logistics. Because I need to make sure I have those figured out. And if someone has a better way to get from Point A to Point B, let me know!

So up first is Travel Day!

We are flying Frontier nonstop (which is my favorite kind of stop). They recently just changed our flight and now we leave earlier. Which is kinda rough because none of us are morning people. I usually try to get flights around 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM so we aren’t getting up crazy early and can make it through the day. But that’s not the case this time. Our flight has been moved up to before 8 AM. Which is going to make the morning rough, but I think our excitement will get us through.

And at least we get into MCO around 10:30 AM now. We will be checking bags (which is something I almost never do) so I’m hoping to be done with baggage claim by around 11:00 AM. This might be wishful thinking, I know.

As I mentioned before, we will grab a rideshare to the resort since we have credits to use. With luck, we will be at POR with our bags dropped off at Bell Services by 12:00 PM! I’m assuming our room won’t be ready that early, which is completely understandable.

I’d like to grab lunch at the Riverside Mill Food Court and relax after traveling! I’m not sure if we will get resort mugs yet, but I think it’s likely since we will have this day and another day at the resort. It seems like we’d be able to get our money’s worth.

Since we’ve never been to either Port Orleans resort before, after lunch I want to walk around, get to know the grounds and film resort tours for my YouTube channel. I probably won’t spend a ton of time doing this as I know my DD will be itching to get to the pool.

We will have some pool time after that before getting ready for dinner. I’m hoping we get a solid 2 hours in, and if we are lucky, a short nap. (Note to self: make sure our swimsuits are with us in case our room isn’t ready.)

For dinner, we have reservations at the Hoop-Dee-Doo-Revue! We’ve never been to FW so this is all new to us! I booked us the 8:30 show, which I know makes for a super late night, before a super long day the next morning, but I digress.

For transportation, my thoughts are take the bus around 7:00 PM to Magic Kingdom, and then hop on the boat to FW. That ought to get us to FW by around 8:00, correct? Then we can check in for our show. After the show, I plan to take the same transportation in reverse. Magic Kingdom is open until 10:00 PM this night. The transportation will still be running? Or is there a different option I should look into. Disney Springs as our connection point?

And depending on what time we get back, and IF he is still playing, I’d like to stop into River Roost to see Yehaw Bob for like 5 minutes.

It’s going to be a very fun, but very exhausting first day!

60 days until POR

What is your YouTube channel? Not sure if we can say it here, if not, DM me. I'd definitely watch a trip report! Glad you got all your reservations, we did, too!

 

[MrsSaraG]

What is your YouTube channel? Not sure if we can say it here, if not, DM me. I'd definitely watch a trip report! Glad you got all your reservations, we did, too!

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it so I will DM you! I do a lot of different travel stuff (mostly teaching), but I'm starting to go heavy on Disney.

 

[Bama Mom]

I wanna know your youtube channel as well please. Transportation should run an hour after the park closes so if you are at MK and in line for your bus by 11:00 you'd be okay. We went to HDDMR in 2022 but I can't remember how long it was. But we were staying at Wilderness Lodge so was able to hop on the boat back to our resort and didn't have to change modes of transportation.

 

[absolutmey]

first day looks good. drop me your youtube as well, please!

 

[Marrila]

I'm enjoying reading as you plan. I'd also love to know your youtube channel.

 

[MrsSaraG]

I wanna know your youtube channel as well please. Transportation should run an hour after the park closes so if you are at MK and in line for your bus by 11:00 you'd be okay. We went to HDDMR in 2022 but I can't remember how long it was. But we were staying at Wilderness Lodge so was able to hop on the boat back to our resort and didn't have to change modes of transportation.

I will send you a DM! As for transportation, maybe we should play it by ear. Since it's Saturday night, I'm pretty sure we could still get transportation from DS if we needed, but I think that will take longer? Uber is always an option if it's late and we just want to get back to the resort as quickly as possible.

first day looks good. drop me your youtube as well, please!

Thanks! I will DM you!

I'm enjoying reading as you plan. I'd also love to know your youtube channel.

Thank you! I will send you a DM!

 

[MrsSaraG]

It’s time for Day 2!

Today is our longest day of the entire trip (unless you count travel day.) My plan is to purchase Genie+ the night before (I’m assuming I will still be up past midnight based on the late night we are having). Then at 7:00 AM I will snag a LL for SDD. We will leave for Hollywood Studios by 7:30 to RD.

I haven’t put a lot of thought into exactly what we are doing at Hollywood Studios yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be something like SDD, TSM, ToT, RnR, and maybe MFSR and/or standby for RoR. My DD LOVES the big thrill rides. ToT has been her favorite ride since she was tall enough at the age of 5 to ride it. So, we will most likely be spending this day riding all the big hitters.

We do have an ADR for 11:40 at Rodeo Roundup. I know it hasn’t gotten great reviews and it’s very expensive for what it is, but I think the atmosphere is what I’m going for. It looks like so much fun to me. It will probably be a once and done type of restaurant, but I need to check it off my list.

We will be utilizing Genie+ as much as possible on this day and I have the rules and stacking thing down so I’m hoping we can get our money’s worth. I do plan to purchase the multi-park option because so far, it seems like it’s only $3 more than just purchasing for HS.

And we are leaving HS at 3:00 PM to head over to MK for MNSSHP! We will get in line as soon as we get there so we can enter the park at 4:00. That extra $3.00 per person seems like a good deal to use Genie+ from 4:00-6:00. (I did this last year and got like 3 LL in before 6:00 without stacking. I think if it do right, I might be able to stack and get a few more?)

I have zero strategy for the Halloween party so far because I want to wait until my DD knows about the trip so she can give me her input and we have more party details. I will do a separate post about this I think once we have that figured out. Last year, I had a good strategy and managed to complete all of it. I was also by myself, and it didn’t rain. I know September can be a gamble with rain.



We are park open to park close kind of people (we’ve always been that way) so we will definitely be at the party the entire night as well.

I don’t have any ADRs for dinner because I don’t want to waste party time (also we try to only do 1 per day and we have one for lunch), but I’m thinking I will just eat some of the Halloween specialty items for dinner. Last year I wanted to try the Spellbinding Pie but I ended up missing out, so I want to make sure I get those treats this year.

I expect to not get back to our room until around 1:00 AM, but don’t worry, we are sleeping in some on Day 3!

59 days until POR

 

[MrsSaraG]

RL Update: The past week was insane. We had friends visiting from out of the country so we spent some time with them doing touristy things in our area. Then it was my daughter’s birthday so we had a party and went to a baseball game and the water park. I’m exhausted from it all! Also, we finally told DD about the trip! She’s very excited. Okay, back to trip planning!



So Day 3 starts off by sleeping in! I can’t imagine we will sleep super late, but definitely later than the 6:30 we will be getting up most mornings.

We are going to Animal Kingdom today, so we aren’t as concerned with getting there for RD. I’d like to RD FOP but sleep is going to be more important, so we don’t end up cranky. Not that I would ever be cranky.

Big hitters for us are Everest and Dinosaur. My DD LOVES roller coasters and thrill rides so we will probably ride these several times if we can. One other must-do for us this trip is FOTLK because we’ve never actually seen it. Blasphemous, I know.

Otherwise, I’d just like to take it easy and meander, get on the Safari and FOP if we can. Nothing else we have to do.

This evening we have a reservation at California Grill and I believe I timed it right so we can see Happily Ever After. After dinner and HEA, I want to shop a little in the gift shops to kill time so we can hopefully see the Electrical Water Pageant tonight. Again, it’s something we’ve never seen!

Then back to POR for some much-needed sleep! (And showers. )

51 days until POR!