PTR: Holiday trip for 3? Err, 5? Wait… 9?? Oh, 7..ish? - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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I tried to do a trip report after our second most recent trip (April ’10), but I failed miserably. I’m like a kitten, I get distracted too easily by shiny objects. My apologies to anyone that might have been reading it, but I’m going to try again. This time, I’ll start with a PTR and see if I can manage to keep up with it until we go. If so, maybe I’ll have a better chance of actually doing an entire trip report this time! Anyway… where to start? Oh, right, cast of characters. (Characters, yes indeedy!)
Me: I’m Jaime. (Hi again!) 35 year old stay at home mom that works as an ASL interpreter when I’m not being a Stay at Home Mom. I’m a South Mississippi girl, and I visited Disney for the first time in ’81, when I was 5. My family visited every 4 years or so growing up (had to save those pennies up!), but once I introduced my husband (then fiancé) in ’00, we’ve been going much more often!
DH: Kenneth, he’s 36. He grew up in a military family, but they were mostly in the northern part of the U.S. They settled down in WV when his father retired, and the poor thing had never been to Disney until I drug him there in 2000. He’s just as addicted as I am now.
DD: Jocelyn (or Joc), she’s 4 ½. Her first trip to Disney was when she was 18 months, and she has been three other times since then. She’s a born and bred Disney addict, from her very first bedroom being covered with Mickey and having a Mickey mobile over her head. She’s a thrill ride fan already, too. Sure, she loves the ‘kid rides’, but she was just at 40” last trip and was able to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (10 times!) and Tower of Terror (3 times!). She can’t wait to get back to ride them again.
MIL: Susie. She’s been to Disney World twice so far, both times with us. The first time was in 2002 (when I had no idea how to plan for it) and then again in 2009. She’s pretty laid back and easy going. Mostly, when she’s with us, she just wants to be with us, and mostly with Joc.
FIL: Chuck. Ah Chuck… He’s a Retired Marine and he and I are like oil and water. He’s hard to please a lot of the time, and has a tendency to become fixated on one thing that he finds he really enjoys (say one park, one ride, or one restaurant). He usually does decently when things are scheduled though, as long as I make sure there are good things to eat along the way.
Nieces: Elizabeth (15) and Lia (13 ½). They’ve only been to Disney once, when they were 6 and 4, so I have no idea what rides they’ll prefer. Elizabeth is pretty laid back, as long as her cellphone is nearby. Lia is a picky eater, but I’m sure she can at least find something to eat at most of the Disney eateries. I know they both love rides, and one is secretly in love with Cinderella, while the other is not so secretly in love with Tink.
Now, how about an explanation about the title. Originally, this trip was going to be the standard 3 person trip of my husband (Kenneth), daughter (Jocelyn) and myself (Jaime). However, since we are going the week after Thanksgiving and my mother-in-law was guilting my husband about us not going up to visit for Thanksgiving, we wound up inviting them. That was 3 +2, giving us 5. Since my parents joined us last year and they brought my niece and nephew, my husband thought it would only be fair if Ken’s parents brought his nieces along. (Note: My parents paid for my niece and nephew’s tickets and then insisted on paying for our daughter’s as well. However, since we suggested they could come, we will now be splitting the cost of tickets for his nieces wherever we happen to go.) So… my husband’s mom tries to ask their mom if they can come, and the next thing we know we’re being informed that they’re trying to make it as well. Wait… what? 5 + 4 = 9?? Our condo says it comfortably sleeps 8, but I felt it was at capacity with 4 adults, 1 teen, 1 tween, and 1 preschooler last year. I couldn’t even begin to imagine adding another pair of adults in there! Thankfully, after two weeks of trying to figure out how to manage that many people (and trying to not kill my husband for not dealing with his family so I wouldn’t have to be the evil daughter-in-law, I finally was informed that my brother-in-law and his wife will not be joining us. The nieces? I’m not sure yet (mom doesn’t want them to go without her), but MIL is working on it. Anyway, that’s what the title is all about.
Coming up: How I make plans, unmake them, remake them, and rearrange them!
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Disney World Trips So Far: 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a (2016b in planning)
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When and Where:
Currently, we are timeshare owners at Orange Lake, and our week is week 48, the week after Thanksgiving. We opt not to deal with banking/exchanging/etc (so no dealing with all that mess), since we love that week so much. It’s so nice and calm during that time, definitely my (current) favorite time to visit Disney. This year, our week begins on Saturday, November 26th and goes through Saturday, December 3rd.
Travel:
Since we live about 9 1/2 hours away, the plan is to leave here on Friday, the 25th and drive about 7 hours. We’ll stay the night in Lake City, and drive the last 2 1/2 hours on Saturday morning. This way, we can get a decent night’s sleep on Friday night and be well rested for Saturday.
My in-laws and nieces live 15 hours away, so they’re planning to leave Friday morning and drive the bulk of the distance that day. They’ve been known to drive straight through to visit us, and it’s slightly further to our house, so I know they can do it if they are up for it. Either way, they’ll arrive sometime Saturday as well.
If the nieces do come, my in-laws will drive their mini-van down. In that case, all 7 of us will be able to fit in it for going to and from the parks and saving us on parking fees. If they don’t come, they should be able to bring their smaller vehicle, and the 5 of us can still ride in one car. Works for me.
Plans, or at least what I’d originally planned:
OK, so… at first, I was being overly, erm… nuts. I was going to overextend us entirely too much, but I find that tends to happen when I’m trying to plan and do the mythical thing of "pleasing everyone". My original plan was going to go something like this:
11/26: After arriving in Orlando, we’d hit Universal Studios. Check-in after park time.
11/27: Islands of Adventure.
11/28: Magic Kingdom
11/29: Animal Kindgom and MVMCP
11/30: Epcot Center
12/1: Hollywood Studios
12/2: Legoland (it opens October 15th, supposedly)
12/3: Magic Kingdom in the morning, hitting Downtown Disney after, and then beginning the drive home.
Yeah, I’d forgotten to give us room to breathe. You'd think I was a rookie planner or something, but nope, that was me trying to please everyone. Fortunately, though, realizing that I was going to have to budget in one extra adult ticket for every single one of those events made me realize how bad of an idea that was. (Yes, the money woke me up, go figure.) That way was going to cost my husband and I almost $2k, just for tickets. (Good thing the resort is already paid for, huh?) So, a huge adjustment had to be done, and now we have two possible schedules. One is 5 days at Disney and 1 at Islands of Adventure. The other is 6 days at Disney. (Both include MVMCP.) Those options put us at $1600 and $1300 respectively. At least $400 less is a great idea, I say! At the moment, we’re looking at 5+1, but we’ll see how that goes.
Next up: The plan, as it stands at almost 20 weeks out, including ADRs.
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Disney World Trips So Far: 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a (2016b in planning)
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Thanks! I think writing helps me get more excited, yipee! (Is it November yet?) Now, if I can just get my MIL to find out if the nieces are coming, we could start getting tickets!
Quote:
Originally Posted by DisneyKYFan
Great start! Can't wait to hear more! Looks like we will be down at the same time.
It's such a great time to be there. Have you been during that time before?
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Disney World Trips So Far: 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a (2016b in planning)
Here are our plans as of 7/12/11. It’s only 136 days out, there’s no way things could possibly change, right?
Friday, November 25th: We plan to leave early-ish in the day on Friday. We live around 9 ½ hours from Orlando, but our check-in time for our resort is on Saturday. We plan to drive from here to Lake City, FL, which is about 7 hours from here and stay the night. Hopefully, we’ll be well-rested for Saturday.
Meals: On the road, who knows.
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Saturday, November 26th: Check-in for our resort doesn’t begin until 4:00, so instead of heading straight there, we’re going to head to Downtown Disney to start getting our Disney spirit on. It will be around 3 hours to drive the rest of the way there, which I figure means that when we get there it will be about time to eat lunch. Depending on how the day goes and how Joc is feeling, we may be around there for a most of the day, or we may head to the resort so we can get settled in. I’m hoping to pack most of what we’ll need at the resort so we won’t have to spend so much time at Target this year (food and necessities wise), but if our guests show up that night as well, we’ll need time for getting settled.
Meals: I keep reading great things about Earl of Sandwich, so I plan to try that for lunch. If we’re still around DTD at dinner, we’ll probably head to our old standby of Wolfgang Puck Express (Marketplace). If not, we’ll grab something on the way back to the resort.
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Sunday, November 27th: It looks like this day will likely be a Universal Studios day. Which park? Yeah, I don’t know. I’d be happy skipping U.S. this trip, but my husband wants to ride the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket, which I’ll likely never step foot on. He figures his mom or dad will do it with him. We’ll see. If we don’t make it to Universal, we’ll probably just add this day on at Magic Kingdom. Enforcing early bedtimes this night, as well as promising to leave anyone behind that isn’t ready by the preset (as yet undetermined) time the following morning.
Meals: Whatever Universal has to feed us.
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Monday, November 28th: Magic Kingdom day. Originally, we were going to have breakfast at the resort and then do lunch at The Plaza Restaurant, but someone on here mentioned how nice it is to get in the park before opening for photo-ops. So… now we’re going to be doing an 8:15 breakfast at The Crystal Palace. No plans to head back to the resort mid-day, since the park is only open 9-8. We’ll hang out there all day, watch Wishes, and head back to the resort. I’m enforcing early bedtimes tonight as well, because we have early plans (and a long day ) the following day.
Meals: Breakfast: Crystal Palace at 8:15, CS lunch and dinner, planning for Columbia Harbor House and probably Cosmic Rays.
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Tuesday, November 29th: Busy day here, with Animal Kingdom and MVMCP. We start with pre-opening breakfast at 8:20 at Tusker House. I’m not sure what all my in-laws will be wanting to do here this day. Mostly, Joc and I care about the Safari, and she loves the Triceratop Spin. We’ve never managed to watch any of the shows here before, so I plan to work on doing that while everyone else rides things Joc is too short for (Primeval Whirl and Everest) and that neither of us like (Dinosaur). We’ll hit some meet and greets, and try to be out of there early-ish. We’ll get a nap in for Joc before eating dinner at the resort and heading back for MVMCP. Animal Kingdom closes at 5, and the party starts at 7. Last year, we did it this way, and it worked pretty well for us.
Meals: Breakfast at Tusker House at 8:20. Lunch likely at Flame Tree BBQ. Dinner at Resort. Snacks at MVMCP. Mmmmm cookies and cocoa in the ‘snow!’
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Wednesday, November 30th: Epcot! Thankfully, we can wake a little slower today, after a long night the previous night. We only do one day at Epcot, because that’s about all Joc can handle. We’ll do brunch at some point, because we have early dinner (4:30) at the Garden Grill for Joc, Ken, and I. (The inlaws have to fend for themselves at the moment.)
Meals: Brunch or snack around 11 or so, early dinner at Garden Grill.
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Thursday, December 1st: Hollywood Studios Day. No real rush to get to the park here, unless, of course, someone is concerned about Toy Story Mania. I won’t be threatening to leave anyone this day, though. Just an average day at the park, though. We’re having lunch at Mama Melrose. Ken and I are leaving Joc with his parents so we can go to Victoria & Albert’s that night. Whee!
Meals: Lunch at Mama Melrose at 12:35. Joc will eat dinner with Ken’s parents, wherever that happens, and he and I will dine at Victoria and Albert’s at 8:45. (I have a dress to buy!)
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Friday, December 2nd: Magic Kingdom, again. We can take this day more slowly, as it will be our third time in this park (Monday, plus MVMCP). We’ll re-ride things we love, try to get things we couldn’t before, and just take it slow and easy. We have lunch reservations at The Plaza Restaurant, since I’ve never eaten there before. The park closes at 7 for MVMCP, and we have 7:45 dinner reservations at Chef Mickey’s that night. I plan to get out of there a little before 7 and probably just walk over to the Contemporary to avoid the chaos of people coming/going from the monorail/ferries. Holiday Wishes is at 9:30, so we may get to hang out and watch after dinner.
Meals: Lunch at Plaza Restaurant at 1:15, dinner at Chef Mickey’s at 7:45.
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Saturday, December 3rd: This day we have to get out of our resort by 10. We’ll check out, head to Downtown Disney for shopping and food, then head out. (Last year, we tried hitting Magic Kingdom for a few hours, and wow were the crowds awful.) We’ll likely go toward Marianna or so, which is just over halfway, stay the night, and drive the rest of the way home on Sunday.
Meals: Who knows!
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Disney World Trips So Far: 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a (2016b in planning)
Last edited by Nyreak; 07-12-2011 at 06:24 PM..
Reason: (Hit 'reply' too soon!)
Great start to your PTR. I like your second set of plans much better. You're go, go, go when you need to be but you've also put in some going slow time (and when you'll need it the most too )
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