Let's Start at the very beginning - PTR:August 17-31 2014 - Page 17 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Today’s plans involve leaving the bubble – sacrilege I know! We are heading to Legoland.
I have 2 options for this morning. One, will be to sleep in a little have breakfast in the room and then head to Legoland. Two, is to get up a little earlier and go over to The Wave of American Flavors for breakfast and then head to Legoland.
I’m leaning more toward option 2 especially since I just read a breakfast review of The Wave over on the Disney Food Blog and I want to try the sweet potato pancakes. Plus I think a nice breakfast to fill the boys up would be a good thing. I have an ADR but don’t think I will really need one for a 7:30 time slot but will need to cancel the day before if we just decide we want to sleep in. The boys will be able to take a nap in the car on the drive so I’m really, really leaning towards option two.
On our last trip to Disney it was opening weekend for Legoland so I knew that was not going to happen. I try to go off site at least once to do something non Disney and see some of the other attractions in the area. Last trip we did Gatorland. Next trip I’m thinking Sea World. They are all just so expensive.
I have a coupon for buy one get one free but you must buy the full adult fare which is $85.00 for one day…UNREAL. Shades of Green sells reduced tickets so when we get the paperwork from them I’ll see which is the better deal.
With Evan being 7 and Eric being 8 I knew a trip to Legoland would again be a now or never sort of thing. Most of the rides are smaller, boardwalk type of rides which will be fine for Evan but Eric has really outgrown. Eric is a pretty big kid and has 2 older siblings so he is rather adventuresome when it comes to rides, much more than Evan. Last trip Evan wasn’t tall enough for Space Mountain and wouldn’t do Expedition Everest yet Eric did them and Rock and Roller Coaster and loved them all. So my fear here is that Eric will be bored. In all honestly I’m sure once he gets there he will be fine but I do think some of the rides will be too baby-ish for him. Either way I don’t care we are going. I do think this is now or never because I’m sure by next visit Evan will be 10 or more and he will not want to go here.
Evan also loves Legos. Eric is sort of a follower so he likes Legos if Evan likes Legos or as kids will be..if there are not enough to share then he loves Legos. Just for comparison, I have an entire display hutch filled with Evan’s completed Lego sets and he has a book case in his room too. Eric I don’t think has one completed Lego set in his house.
I don’t know too much about this park other than it used to be Cypress Gardens (which I went to when I was about 5). It is about 45 minutes away from Disney, they have a water ski show, several rides, walk through “towns” made of Lego and a water park section and the hours are 10 to 6.
I have no plan of attack other than to arrive at 10 and stay as long as the boys want or until closing at 6. I need to do a little more research to see what is there and the best way to approach things.
After our time at Legoland and assuming we stay until closing I’m going to insist the boys rest in the car as we will be heading straight back to Disney and over the Wilderness Lodge to explore and have dinner are Whispering Canyon Café.
I said before I wanted to explore a little more resorts this vacation so this will be #3 (AKL, AOA). I have stayed at Fort Wilderness a few times so have driven by WL but have never been inside nor have I been to WCC – none of us have.
Come to think of it this entry day is a day of “first” for us.
Last trip we did Hoop Dee Do and the kids loved it. I’m hoping they will enjoy this too. Evan loves ketchup so I can’t wait until he asks for ketchup and Eric drinks a ton at his meals so the CM interaction should be a hoot. Of course they know nothing about this place so all the antics and horse races will be a complete surprise to them.
I’d like to explore around the resort a little. Perhaps do the hidden Mickey search and go out to see the geyser.
Our ADR for WCC is at 7:50. That is a little later than I wanted and nothing earlier has opened up yet. Everyone gave me the advice to just show up early and see if they can seat us. I hope so.
If we leave Legoland at 6 we should be back in the bubble by 7. But I suppose if the boys are sleeping in the car we could just let them doze until dinner time. And do the exploring after dinner. Well the order is all up in the air but the plans are in place – if that makes sense.
Firsts:
Evan – everything
Me – everything
Mom – everything
Eric – everything
I have been following the magic band and FP+ changes closely. I'm sure most of you are too. I've been debating on if we will get AP or MYW tickets. More on that in another update later this week. But I did find out that SOG is now sending guests the advance ticket purchase e-mail at 45 days before arrival so we will be able to purchase our discounted military tickets in advance and have all the numbers needed so we will be able to book our FP+ at the 30 day point.
I'm a fan of the breakfast buffet at The Wave, and normally I don't like buffets much. The sweet potato pancakes with the pecan butter are YUMMY! Sounds like a fun expedition to Legoland. I'd like to see it sometime, mostly for the section with the miniature cities. Glad Wrigley is doing ok. All the changes necessary when pets get older just creep up on you and before you know it, your house is toddler-proof again!
Breakfast at The Wave is on our to do eat list for the future, so I'll be anxious to hear your review. Legoland sounds like it will be fun for the boys. We love WCC, so I hope the boys find it lots of crazy fun.
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So I’m sorta going out of order because I’m sneaking in this update about passes rather than my day 12 plans, mostly because I’ve been trying to figure out which passes to buy.
So if you thought just buying WDW passes was confusing with all the different options available just think about adding all the SOG options to choose from into the mix as well.
Here are my options now…
Magic Your Way at the gate or in advance from Disney Online or from a wholesaler. Then I have the debate of including the options of to park hop, water parks and more and the number of days.
Could also choose Annual Pass or Premium AP.
Now Shades also offers Magic Your Way and Annual passes but gives a Military discount. However they also have 2 other ticket type’s exclusive to Military/Shades guests. They are the Armed Forces Salute and Stars and Stripes and each of those offering their own benefits and restrictions as well.
Jeez could this get any more complicated?
I was pretty sure that I would be getting some sort of annual pass so that we can buy the Tables in Wonderland card and get free parking in the theme parks. So really I just needed to check on the other 3 tickets for everyone else.
We are going for a total of 15 days but I have definite 10 days in the parks planned. So my dilemma is, will we need any other park days for those remaining 5?
The short answer is I don’t really know. Two of those days are our travel days, one of those days is our Legoland day. So in theory we won’t need them but if we decide to leave Legoland early and are back at the resort by 2pm, who knows maybe we will want to run to a theme park. Same with arrival day as the draw of the Magic Kingdom may be just too much to resist.
The 2 passes offered at Shades are Armed Forces Salute which is a 4 day pass with either hopping or water parks+ for $169.00 no tax. You can have both hop and water for $198.00. They expire at the end of the Armed Forces Salute annual renewal contract which is September 2014. Each Military member can only purchase 6 tickets so if my mom did buy these that would only get the 3 of them 8 days total. Then they need MYW for the other days. Of course then the MYW are more expensive per day if you only buy 3 or 4 days rather than the 10 days.
The other Shades offer is the Stars and Stripes. This is basically a MYW ticket and can be purchased for 2 to 10 days. They are hoppers and water parks but expire 1 day after the number of days purchased. So a 10 day ticket would expire on day 11. Not so good for a 15 day trip since our “off” days are being spread out. These tickets are unlimited in the amount the military member can purchase so then I needed to figure out if two 6-day passes per person would work or not.
Shades of Green also offered straight out MYW just like at the gate except there is no tax and they offer a military rate. Example a 10 day MYW adult ticket at gate with Hopper and Water+ is $468. That same ticket is $430 at Shades of Green – not a huge saving but anything helps right.
So after nearly pulling my hair out trying to calculate all the different scenarios I finally decided on…
A Premium Annual Pass for myself.
A Military MYW 10-day Hopper and Water Parks + option for everyone else. And if we need it we will purchase the Armed Forces Salute once we are there if we are running out of park days.
I was planning on 2 visits to the water parks and the Annual Pass was only a saving of $118.00 over the PAP. However the 2 water park admissions would have cost $104.00 so for basically $15.00 I’ll get unlimited water parks/Disney Quest.
I think the 10+ options on the MYW tickets will be plenty for everyone else.
So this will bring us to 10 theme park admission with the option of 4 more if needed, 10 visits to the “optional” parks. Unlimited visits for me for everything. Free theme park parking and the discounted TIW card.
It really is hard to figure out how much food savings we will have but I estimated $300.00. Plus the tour/cruise discounts and shopping.
In the end I calculated 5 different scenarios and this was the 2nd least expensive (again only $15.00 more than the AP option) but really gave us the most admissions and freedoms.
Now the nice thing I’ve found out is at 45 days before arrival Shades will contact us and we can pre purchase our passes. This way they are waiting for us at check in and we don’t have to go to the attractions counter and wait in another line. Plus Shades will e-mail our ticket numbers so we can link them to our MDX account and still make FP+ at the 30 day mark. Yippee!
I’m still debating if I want to bother with the magic bands. They won’t open our door, they won’t allow charging, I still will be carrying a bag or back pack so it isn’t like I can use them and go bagless. I think we will probably just use the admission cards. If I hold all of them then we don’t have to worry too much about the kids losing something and then they are just all together all the time.
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Legoland sounds like it will be fun for the boys. We love WCC, so I hope the boys find it lots of crazy fun. 
It's nice to have options, but they can almost make deciding more difficult. 
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