A little spring in our WDW steps with a live update! - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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A little spring in our WDW steps with a live update!
I’m guilty! I'm one that procrastinates and it shows as I haven’t done a TR from our June 2015 Anniversary trip. I have all the notes, but was just able to download the pictures during the Christmas break.
Here's one of the pictures from the trip report that I'm currently working on. This is from the day of our anniversary
I haven’t been able to work on fixing pictures because of what I’m about to talk about. We’ve scheduled another trip, and it’s less than 50 days away.
Who:
Myself, 40, Disney fanatic, who didn’t experience Disney until 3 years ago. My wife begged and pleaded to go for our honeymoon and every anniversary from when we got married in 2005 until 2012. Finally, I decided to book a trip in 2012, and we traveled in April 2013. This will be our 4th trip since then, a matter of less than 3 years. I guess you can say I’m hooked. In addition to Disney, I love baseball.
DW, 32, fellow Disney addict. Loves Cinderella. She is the reason I’m hooked on Disney. This will also be her 4th trip.
When:
March 1-5
Where:
We're staying at Pop Century in a preferred room. This is 2 straight trips that we will have stayed at PC, so it's kind of becoming our home resort (although we've booked a November trip, and we're staying in AofA for that one).
Why:
We have a friend that plays in the Atlanta Braves system. He ended last year at Triple-A, so we’re hoping he begins 2016 in the majors. Where do the Braves have their Spring Training? Disney World. So, it worked out perfectly. He said he’s going to get us passes/tickets and said he’s going to ask to pitch the day we’re there.
Basics:
We’re not on the DDP (yet) and are flying in/out on Southwest. I originally booked the flights the day after Thanksgiving and paid approximately $560 for 2 roundtrip tickets. A few weeks later, I checked the SWA site and found one of the legs had dropped to $41, so I rebooked. A few weeks after that, I checked again and the other leg had dropped to $127. So, now our roundtrip tickets are $168, which isn’t too bad from Dallas.
All that means is we have a credit to use before Thanksgiving … a 2nd trip back maybe.
So that’s all the basics. Will start with daily information shortly as we’re still trying to nail down/confirm some things. I think I’m the world’s worst at changing after something’s already booked. For example, look at our flights. Also, today I just changed one of our ADRs to another restaurant, haha.
Thanks. Yeah, I rarely fly, so didn't know that was even possible until I started reading it on a thread on here. So I am paying attention, haha.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great start! Very nice that you've gotten some credit on your flights, too!
Thanks. Will be updating more soon as we're under 40 days now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xrosario
Sounds like fun! Looking forward to hearing more.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks again. Looking forward to it, although I'm still trying to make sure everything is scheduled correctly and we have things exactly as we want them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great start!
Thanks. Since I found out you can rebook, etc., I've checked on them pretty much every day to see if I can get a cheaper one.
Travel days 1 & 2
February 29
Emily (DW) works in a town about 25 minutes away, and we decided it’d be best if we didn’t leave a car at her work for a week. So, I’ll be carrying her to work that day (she has to be at work at 6:45 a.m.). That way we will only have one car. I have to work until lunch and then will head home and do some last minute stuff. Depending on what time she gets off work that day, probably around 3-4 p.m., I will pick Emily up sometime in the middle of the afternoon. From there, we’ll make the 2-1/2 drive to Dallas.
We have rented a hotel room for the night since our flight is at 6:10 a.m. out of Love Field and have a park and fly option, so we’ll get dinner somewhere in the metroplex and then head to the hotel. Hopefully we’re in bed before midnight since we’ll have about a 3 a.m. wake up call for our flight the next day.
The last trip we took too long getting ready and almost missed our shuttle from the hotel to the airport as well as our flight. So we’re going to try to a lot more time to getting up and around and ready.
March 1
As I said our flight leaves at 6:10 a.m. and arrives in Orlando about 9:25 a.m. From there, we’ll grab our luggage, hop a DME bus and hopefully be at the resort by noon. Since we have stayed at Pop before and like to get into the parks right away, there probably won’t be much time walking around the resort and checking it out. We have done that previously.
At some point, I want to go to guest services and see about upgrading to annual passes (if I can get Emily to approve). We just bought her a new car this weekend, so we’ll have to play with our budget a bit. As I said earlier, our flight is going to be paid for, so it’s a matter of just getting a room and meals on a subsequent trip. Therefore, it might not be too hard to convince her…hopefully.
Our first FP is Peter Pans Flight at 1:30 p.m. We have a lunch QS at 2 p.m. at Be Our Guest, and another FP for Under the Sea-Journey of the Little Mermaid from 2:35-3:35. We routinely take afternoons off during the day to go back to the resort and rest or to go resort-hopping or whatever. So we’ll continue with that and go to the resort after our Little Mermaid FP. We’ll also use that resort time to unpack a bit.
Our final FP is Big Thunder Mountain at 6:45 and then dinner at 6:50 at Tony’s Town Square. I just realized we probably need to bump back the dinner time or bump up the FP time.
We will get to watch the Electrical Parade at 7 since we’ll be at Tony’s. When we finish dinner, we plan to walk outside and catch Celebrate and Wishes. About halfway through Wishes, we will probably head outside the park to get watch the final bit out there. Then we’ll head for the busses and probably bed since we will have been up for about 18-19 hours at that time.
What I am most looking forward to: riding the tram at the Orlando airport because of the excitement it brings knowing you’re in Orlando, there are no more flights for a few days and your whole vacation is ahead of you.
What I’m not looking forward to: getting up really early to catch a 4:15 a.m. shuttle to the airport for our 6:10 a.m. flight.
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Thanks for the heads up. I checked and unfortunately, they hadn't gone down. But I don't really expect them too. I got the Dallas to Orlando leg for $41. I know it won't get any cheaper than that. Will keep checking for the flight back, but don't expect much change.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugmonster
Nice update... Might want to check your fare prices again. I scored a $100 credit yesterday.
For some reason, getting up at 3 a.m. is much easier when you're going to Disney. Don't know what it is, but glad it's that way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
Great plans for your first day! Well, except for the early wake up.
Thanks. I am the type that changes them routinely, but I think I'm keeping these where we're at.
Our first full day at WDW will be spent at Animal Kingdom. We didn’t go to this park on our short June 2015 trip, so it will have been about 15 months since we were last there.
I’m curious to see all of the construction going on with Avatar Land and Rivers of whatever it’s called. I’m excited about getting back to AK.
It’s EMH in the morning, so we plan on catching Dinosaur first. Neither of us have ever ridden this, so I’m curious to see what it’s like.
Our first FP is scheduled for 9:35 a.m. at Expedition Everest. This will again be a first for me. I’m not too thrilled about it, but I told her I’d ride it on our next trip. I might wind up chickening out, who knows. But we’ve got a FP for it.
This is DW and DGD on EE in Dec. 2014.
We then have a FP for Kilimanjaro Safaris at 10:55, so we’ll make our way over there. We love this and hope to see my favorite, the lions.
We didn’t see much in the way of lions on our last trip. So, hopefully we’ll get a better view of them.
From there we’ll grab lunch at Flame Tree BBQ, another first time for both of us. I’ve heard lots of good reviews, etc. So I’m willing to try it out.
We’ll then wrap up the AK portion of our trip at Festival of the Lion King. I love, love, love this show. It’s one of my favorites in all of WDW. That FP is scheduled for 12:30, so we’ll head out of the park at about 1:45.
From there, we’ll head to the resort for our typical afternoon break and siesta (although my siestas are getting chorter and chorter). There is a possibility that we don’t go to the resort if we bump our tickets to APs. If that’s the case, we’ll head over to Hollywood Studios as we don’t have a HS day planned for this trip.
Most likely, we’ll be at the resort resting until about 5:30 or 6 or earlier depending on how bad traffic is going to be at the time.
We have 2 ADRs scheduled for that night and will determine which one to drop the night before.
We’ve got Morimoto Asia at 7 p.m. and the Boathouse at 8:30. Both of these would be firsts for us, so feel free to give me some ideas which you think is better and why.
I talked to our friend who plays for the Braves and he said to call him, and he would meet us for dinner at whichever restaurant we chose. So, I’m probably going to go back into MDE and change our ressie from 2-3.
Can I make a quick change? Or do I have to have manually put him into the system? Is it possible to just show up and tell them we’ve got a party of 3 instead of 2? Any help here is appreciated it.
We’ll probably end up at Jock Lindsey’s Hanger Bar or the Ghirardelli shop for dessert after that. Afterward, we’ll do a bit of shopping, even though we’re not really shoppers and then head back to the resort for the night.
What I’m most looking forward to: having dinner with our friend who plays for the Braves. What I’m not looking forward to: riding Expedition Everest.
But because I promised DW I would, I will have to follow through. My second not looking forward to is the traffic around Disney Springs. I hear it’s really, really bad.
Up next: Why we’ve got a 6-hour break planned for the next day.
Remember that if you decide to upgrade to APs do so after you use your tickets at least once to secure the current discount. (I have never had an AP but that it is what everybody says here on PP).
Your first day looks great. I love AK. Spending time with a friend & professional baseball player while at Disney sounds like an amazing time. I think adding him to the ressie ADR is the best plan bc a 2 person table is not the same as a 4 topper. Also I would probably lean to the Boathouse based solely on the reviews I have been reading of the two. The Boathouse is getting rave reviews & Morimoto is only getting so so ones. Specifically that Morimoto is nothing special. For the price especially everything being a la carte it should be spectacular IMO.
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Very nice that you've gotten some credit on your flights, too! 
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