Won't be long before this PTR is a TR...because there's only 9 days left! Oct 2022 Mini WDW Trip with Friends

[ishbit92]

Well, I have reached the point in my trip planning where I am 9 days out (single digits?!

) and thinking about this trip consumes me and I can't think about anything else, so I might as well do a PTR.

The details:

Who:

Me, DH, and 6 of our friends. There will be 8 of us total--all couples. 6 of us (DH and myself included) are flying down from Alaska to visit our 2 friends who moved to Florida. We are all in our early-mid 30's and are a bunch of nerds. DH and I are probably the most "theme park people" out of the bunch though. Our friends who live in FL are theme park people too though, but they are more Universal Studios fans whereas DH & I are firmly suckered into the house of mouse

. The other couple have never really been to theme parks so they are in for some new experiences, and the other couple enjoy theme parks but they don't get nuts about it like we do lol. I haven't been to WDW/Universal in Florida since I was 11 years old and my husband has never been to Florida. We go to DLR regularly. Here is a pic of me and DH at Oga's Cantina in DLR this last December, posing with Halloween Donald in DLR in Oct 2018, and in Walt's Apartment (Walk in Walt's Tour) in Feb 2018. Not including pics of anyone else since they don't know I am writing this TR and I don't want to put up anyone's face without their permission lol. But we are a big group.



When:

We are all coming down at different times, as some have family they are visiting in FL prior. But for DH and I, we leave on 9/30 in the early evening and don't get to MCO until almost 1pm the following day on 10/1 . This is the reason why I have put off visiting WDW in favor of going to DLR instead lol, it's so dang far. And I'm cheap when it comes to booking flights so I don't buy the good ones with shorter layovers and more direct routes. But! Now that we have friends in FL I imagine we'll go more (and I have a feeling I'm going to realize how cool WDW is which will make me want to come back). We leave Orlando on 10/8 and get back to AK on 10/9.

Where:
We are splitting our stay between 3 places. Not my usual choice to move around that much, but I last-minute booked 1 night at the Wilderness Lodge for just me and DH. I justified $ it because we are splitting lodging for the rest of the trip so spending less on accommodations than we normally would. We LOVE the Grand Californian in DLR so WL's cozy woodsy vibe appeals to us and it's in the MK area which is the park we will go to the next morning. Plus I tend to get peopled out so having one night to ourselves mid-trip sounds great.

So it's going to go like this: Splitting an Airbnb in one of those vacation home neighborhoods near WDW for the first 4 nights, but one of the nights DH & I will be at the WL. We will then move to Cabana Bay at Universal studios for the last 3 nights of the trip. We are splitting 2 queen rooms with 2 couples in each room at Cabana Bay to save $.

 

[ishbit92]

Itinerary:

Friday, 9/30: DH and I have entire the day off yay! I tend to book red-eye flights so we are usually waking up at the crack of dawn, or leaving really late after staying up late. So I'm pretty stoked to have daytime to finish packing and chill with our cats (we have a great pet-sitter but I get so sad and nervous leaving them every time we travel). We live an hour away from the airport, so we will head into town around 1 or 2ish for our flight that leaves at 5:30. We'd leave so early because I know we'll want to stop and get lunch in the city somewhere. We arrive to SEA close to 10pm and our flight takes off near 12am. I sure hope I can sleep on this flight! I do tend to be a good flight sleeper. Flying makes me nervous so my body wills itself to shut down I think . But there's always that fear that I won't sleep good.

Saturday, 10/1: Arrive to Austin, TX early in the morning. We've never been to the AUS airport before so that'll be interesting. We have almost a 3 hour layover so we'll have to get breakfast somewhere in the airport. We take off mid-morning and land in MCO close to 1pm! Would love to take nap part 2 on this flight. Otherwise we're going to be dead tired. I'm a little bummed that we are the last to arrive. Our other friends will all have already been there since Friday so I feel like if we don't sleep good on the plane (and even if we do sleep) we aren't going to be rested. I usually have so much trip excitement nerves that I have trouble sleeping the first few days of vacation so I'm just nervous about being exhausted but not being able to sleep because I'm too excited. I also did something slightly unhinged and booked a 10pm Rainforest Cafe reservation in Disney Springs for this first night we are there. Our friends showed us the Eddy Burback/Ted Nivision Youtubers video series of them eating at every Rainforest Cafe in the country, and it was hilarious. Much of us in the group cannot resist a gimmicky themed restaurant so we had to snag a reservation. The only one I was able to find for 8 people was Saturday night at 10pm (which to be fair, for us Alaskans it will feel like 6pm) so that's the plan. I'm hoping loading up on Safari fries and souvenir cup Icees will make me sleepy so I can pass out when we get back to the Airbnb .

Sunday, 10/2: This is one of the few days of the trip where we have no concrete plans! Which I'm happy about, TBH, especially since this is DH & I's first full day. I'm thinking we will mostly chill at the Airbnb (it has a pool!) and visit. The couple that lives in FL moved there almost a year ago so we haven't seen them since, so it will be nice to just catch up.

Monday, 10/3: Epcot day! So this is the night that DH & I are staying at WL, so we plan on waking up early at the Airbnb (7ish?) and catching a Lyft to WL to drop off our overnight bags. I don’t plan on lugging our big suitcases over, we will probably just bring our carry-ons with an overnight of clothes. So Epcot opens at 8:30am that day, but because 10/3 is technically our check-in day at WL I think that means we can get in via early entry? That being said, I’m not sure if we will make it there on time. I don’t want to wake up before 7am, quite frankly. And from what I’ve read, it sounds like rope drop isn’t as much of a necessity in Epcot compared to MK and HS? If someone wants to confirm that, by all means. I would be mega surprised if we could get into our room that early at WL so we are just going there to drop off our bags at the bellhop, maybe explore the grounds a bit, then take a bus to Epcot to make it in by 9am at the latest. Now I don’t want to make my friends wake up at the crack of dawn and go over to WL with us (unless they want to, but also side-note could they even take the bus to Epcot as non-hotel guests if they were to go to WL with us in the morning?), so I am making the assumption that we will meet our friends in Epcot. I want to do the big 3 in the morning: Frozen, Remy, & Test Track. More than likely buy an ILL to Guardians too, but I need to do more research because we are primarily there for Food & Wine and well..F&W doesn’t sound like it will mesh with a ride that makes folks nauseous lol. I hope our friends show up to Epcot by 8:30-9am so we can all do rides together. It makes more sense to me to ride the 3 most popular Epcot attractions in the morning, then start food-ing and wine-ing at 11am when most of the booths open up. Then we can hit other, less popular attractions in between stuffing our faces. If anyone has any tips for Epcot attraction strategies, I’d love to hear them. Or if my plan sounds unrealistic or if we should prioritize rope drop or early entry then let me know! I don’t anticipate staying in Epcot super late–I’d like time to enjoy and relax at WL that evening so I am hoping to leave Epcot by 5-6 (or earlier if we’ve done enough attractions, feel like we’ve ate/drank enough at the festival). We will part ways with our friends at this point, unless they want to join us at Geyser Point for more food/drinks. I’ll see how full we are, but I really do want to try Geyser Point this evening! Lastly, I just want to have a nice relaxing evening at WL, and go to bed by a decent hour.


Tuesday, 10/4: Magic Kingdom day! Wake up early, I’m thinking around 6:45am-7am? Early entry for MK is 7:30-8 so if anyone thinks waking up at 7 is too late let me know–we will be taking the boat to MK from WL. Maybe 6:30 am would be a better wake up time. I do want to rope drop, but we don’t need to be at the beginning of the horde. Something that adds a trickier layer to our rope-drop plan is that one of the couples will be joining us at MK on this day but they are not staying on property so the earliest they can get in is at 8am. They are very new to theme parks (only one of them has been to WDW as a kid and the other has never been to any Disney park). So my dilemma is..I want to take advantage of early entry for DH & I, but I don’t want to do too much without our friends. They are down to show up at 8am, but I could see them not getting through the gates until later with lines and such. Another major point about this day is that it is a MNNSHP day, which I’ve heard is actually great for low crowds in the MK (fingers crossed that’s true!)

I would love feedback on our plan for the MK day:

• DH and I will wake up anywhere between 6:30a-7a, take the boat from WL to MK. Drop off our bags at bell hop before we head to the boat. Book at LL at 7am for us and our 2 friends. Maybe I’ll book Peter Pan? Not sure yet.
• Get in MK by 7:30 early entry. Go to Fantasyland, ride whatever has a short line. Because I do want to experience most of the rides with our friends after they get in at 8, it might be fun to just use this 30 minutes early entry to walk around and orient ourselves in the new (to us) park that is weirdly familiar and unfamiliar to us DLR people.
• Meet our friends down Main Street or the hub and either head to our first LL if the return window is open, or perhaps to our ILL if that return window is open. Oh I have a question. So ILL’s, hotel guests can book them at 7am right? Could we book the ILL for all 4 of the people in our party, even though 2 of them aren’t hotel guests? I have a feeling no, so we might have to wait until 8am to book the 7 Dwarves ILL, oh well. I think I want to start in Fantasyland with our friends because it’s so classic Disney, but I also like the idea of starting in Adventureland with them and working our way clockwise through the lands. Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, and Splash are MUSTS for us, so maybe starting with Adventureland makes sense. Open to suggestions!
• I managed to snag a lunch reservation at Skipper Canteen which I’m super excited about! So we’ll have lunch at 12:40. We can only be in the park until 6pm so I just want to enjoy and show our friends our favorite rides which are also new to us being on the opposite coast And go on attractions new to us (or that I haven’t gone on for 20 years), like the People Mover, Country Bear Jamboree, and Swiss Family Treehouse. I really want to get PhotoPass pictures too–in front of the Castle, Magic Shots around the park, pics with Mickey, etc! Is that something we can buy day of, through the WDW app? I haven’t looked into that yet.
• Head back to WL by 6pm then head back to our Airbnb for our last night there. Reconvene with our big group and probably get dinner somewhere.Our WDW portion of the trip is sadly over at this point, the main goal of this trip was not (gasp! for me and DH) to visit Disney parks, but I managed to squeeze in an extra MK day and a 1 night resort stay, so I’m very much looking forward to it. Originally Epcot was the only WDW park on the table with the group, but I caved and got MK tickets and it turned out one of the couples wanted to come with us. Also I was originally going to do an additional HS day instead of MK, but they were booked up at Savi’s. I really want a lightsaber–my husband built one at DLR in December of this last year, and their Savi’s reservations are way less cut-throat so I missed out on that one for this time. Again, I KNOW we will be back to WDW after I get a taste!

I’ll stop this PTR here because I realized there’s a Universal PTR board, so I will post our detailed Universal plans over on that side if anyone cares to read the rest. But to summarize here, we are checking into Cabana Bay on 10/5, doing Halloween Horror Nights that evening, then going out to cool themed bars in Downtown Orlando on 10/6, then chilling by the pool at Cabana Bay 10/7, then we will do an Islands of Adventure partial day 10/8 and our flight takes off that evening.

This trip is going to go by so fast!