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

[MrsSaraG]

Day 4 is my birthday!

And I decided the way I wanted to spend my birthday this year is eating and drinking around the world, so Epcot it is!

And I’ve decided I’m splurging a bit today. I’ve already started putting money on a gift card for Food and Wine (I kept my gift card from last year and have been transferring money to it via disneygiftcard.com). I am probably going to get a VQ for Guardians AND maybe buy an ILL for it too. It’s my favorite ride in all the parks (to be fair, I haven’t ridden Tron yet, but I hear Guardians is better). And if I’m feeling feisty, I might splurge for Genie+ as well. I definitely don’t think it’s necessary for Epcot (or probably worth it), but my DH hasn’t ridden Remy’s yet and I don’t want to wait in line tbh. So we will leave that up in the air for now.

We will definitely ride all of the rides in Epcot. With the exception of Mission Space. No thanks. But the rest for sure. I like to try to get them all done by 11 AM when World Showcase opens and then spend the rest of the day eating.

I love love love the Food and Wine Festival and can’t wait to walk around World Showcase. However, I also really want to check out Space 220. I did manage to get a lunch ADR for the restaurant, but I’d rather have one for the lounge. (I do have an alert set up for that so hopefully I can switch. Cross your fingers for me). I’d just rather spend the money and room in my stomach on the F&W kiosks and not a huge meal in a restaurant. But I will do it and take one for the team if I have to.

And I still haven’t seen Epcot Forever. Actually, I haven’t seen any of the fireworks at Epcot since IllumiNations. So, I’d like to try to hang out and see it this trip.

I’m kinda bummed not to be staying at a Skyliner resort this trip and I will definitely miss that for the ride home, but it’s a fair tradeoff for a Princess room.

46 days until POR

 

[Mle8308]

Day 4 is my birthday!

And I decided the way I wanted to spend my birthday this year is eating and drinking around the world, so Epcot it is!

And I’ve decided I’m splurging a bit today. I’ve already started putting money on a gift card for Food and Wine (I kept my gift card from last year and have been transferring money to it via disneygiftcard.com). I am probably going to get a VQ for Guardians AND maybe buy an ILL for it too. It’s my favorite ride in all the parks (to be fair, I haven’t ridden Tron yet, but I hear Guardians is better). And if I’m feeling feisty, I might splurge for Genie+ as well. I definitely don’t think it’s necessary for Epcot (or probably worth it), but my DH hasn’t ridden Remy’s yet and I don’t want to wait in line tbh. So we will leave that up in the air for now.

We will definitely ride all of the rides in Epcot. With the exception of Mission Space. No thanks. But the rest for sure. I like to try to get them all done by 11 AM when World Showcase opens and then spend the rest of the day eating.

I love love love the Food and Wine Festival and can’t wait to walk around World Showcase. However, I also really want to check out Space 220. I did manage to get a lunch ADR for the restaurant, but I’d rather have one for the lounge. (I do have an alert set up for that so hopefully I can switch. Cross your fingers for me). I’d just rather spend the money and room in my stomach on the F&W kiosks and not a huge meal in a restaurant. But I will do it and take one for the team if I have to.

And I still haven’t seen Epcot Forever. Actually, I haven’t seen any of the fireworks at Epcot since IllumiNations. So, I’d like to try to hang out and see it this trip.

I’m kinda bummed not to be staying at a Skyliner resort this trip and I will definitely miss that for the ride home, but it’s a fair tradeoff for a Princess room.

46 days until POR

Happy birthday!

 

[honeymo78]

Sounds like you have a great trip planned. My mom's birthday is the same day as yours and we've taken a few trips over her birthday. We now go the week before her birthday due to my brother's work schedule and she's old enough to not mind not being there on her actual birthday every year lol.

After the late HDDR show, there will likely be busses back to the resorts - I think they combine a few resorts but way better than trying to get back to the MK and over to a bus. The show is about 2 hours so you'll be getting out close to 10:30 which would be cutting it close for MK transportation with a 10pm park close. Which makes me almost 100% sure there will be busses provided at FW.

 

[MrsSaraG]

Happy birthday!

Thank you!

Sounds like you have a great trip planned. My mom's birthday is the same day as yours and we've taken a few trips over her birthday. We now go the week before her birthday due to my brother's work schedule and she's old enough to not mind not being there on her actual birthday every year lol.

After the late HDDR show, there will likely be busses back to the resorts - I think they combine a few resorts but way better than trying to get back to the MK and over to a bus. The show is about 2 hours so you'll be getting out close to 10:30 which would be cutting it close for MK transportation with a 10pm park close. Which makes me almost 100% sure there will be busses provided at FW.

Happy early birthday to your mom! Thanks for the info about the busses. That would be fantastic! I will definitely be on the lookout for them.

 

[MrsSaraG]

Day 5 is a resort day.

Today the plan is to sleep in a little to recover. Then hit the pool(s) for the day. This day is about relaxing and as Molly would say “luxuriating”. #iykyk

We will have lunch at one of the quick service restaurants. Between our arrival day and today, we will probably eat at both quick service restaurants between both Port Orleans resorts. Which one is your favorite? Do you have a favorite meal? So many choices!

We do have reservations for Storybook Dining at Artist Point with Snow White at 6:00 PM. I'm pretty excited about this dinner because I've heard good things! I’m thinking we will do the boat to DS (assuming it’s running) and grab a bus to Wilderness Lodge from there.

After dinner, we plan to head over to Fantasia Mini Golf. My DD loves playing mini golf (her birthday party this year was at a local mini golf course!) so we must play mini golf at least once on our trips. I’m debating – do we take a bus to Hollywood Studios and walk over? Do we Uber to the Swan? This is still TBD.

I think it’s likely we will Uber back to POR after we are done playing golf due to how late it will be. But we will see. HS closes at 9:00 on this day so it’s possible we could walk over there and take a bus back. But I’m thinking this might all be determined on the fly.

Sorry about all the gifs. There isn't much to update on for this day, so I had to make it exciting.

44 days until POR

 

[MrsSaraG]

Day 6 takes us back to Magic Kingdom. And if you are following along closely, you’ll realize, we haven’t been to MK yet for a regular park day. Blasphemous I know. Unfortunately, you know how picking park days can be a puzzle and this is just how it worked out this trip.

We will have Genie+ today and I do plan to be up at 7 AM to get a VQ for Tron and immediately following a LL for 7DMT. I don’t think I’ve gotten to ride 7DMT since 2020, so that’s gonna be a priority for me today. I get both.

We will be at MK for RD. I’m so excited to be back on Main Street.

We don’t have any ADRs today. Our priority is going to be getting through as many rides as we can, the FoF parade, and FEA. I keep going back and forth about adding the Dessert Party, but I'm not a huge sweets person, so the draw for me is the free wine designated area for fireworks viewing. But also, with the projections on Main Street, do I even want to sit in the hub? I don't know, what do you all think about the dessert party?

29 days until POR!

 

[MrsSaraG]

Day 7 is our last park day and we are spending it in Hollywood Studios! Remember back when I said I was asking my DD “hypothetical” questions to help plan the trip she didn’t know we were taking? Well, one of them was “Next time we go to Disney World, whenever that may be, which park would you like to visit 2 days?” Because I knew we were going to have a 5th park day which meant one of the parks we could visit twice. She chose Hollywood Studios. I think mostly because there are more higher intensity rides there. Anyway, she totally got to help plan this trip and didn’t even know it.

Again, I will be purchasing Genie+ for today because of all the rides. We probably will not purchase an ILL for Rise. It’s a fantastic ride, one of the best, but we’ve ridden it several times, so it doesn’t feel as necessary this trip. If we can find it with a wait under 60 mins, we will probably jump in line for it though. I've been looking at wait times this week and it's been fairly low so fingers crossed.

We do have an ADR for Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant for dinner. I did NOT get the Fantasmic package. That was by choice (and I heavily considered it.)

We definitely want to see Fantasmic at 8:00 PM. And than at 9:15 (after park closing) we have a reservation at Oga’s Cantina! I just wanted to swing in here for a drink and check out the amazing atmosphere. I also purposely planned it after park closing so that hopefully when we are done, we can get some amazing photos of Galaxy’s Edge. It seemed like the perfect last evening in WDW.

Also, I have NO idea when we are going to pack. We have to be out of our room pretty early the next morning so…

9 days until POR!