12 days, 7 people, a cabin and A LOT of magic! A 12/14 (P)TR *UPD: 11/13*

[PadmeNaberie]

Hello, hello!! Welcome to my first trip report

Okay so we are still 39 days away, but THAT'S IN THE THIRTIES, AM I RIGHT?? No better time to get the ball rolling!

This is my first trip report so I hope you'll enjoy! I am including the pre-trip report in this same thread.

Who?

There's us, from our last trip in 2011, on the dock at Fort Wilderness. DD, Me (Emily), DM, DB #1-3. Or should I say, #3-1?

Momma and dad wouldn't be too pleased with me if I shared their ages so just pretend you know! I am 21, and my brothers are now 19 (Ben,) 16 (Chris,) and 12 (Josh)- and they all tower over me!

Honestly that's the latest family photo of us all together so it's very fitting that its taken at Disney World!

We will be returning to our home resort, Fort Wilderness this trip! This is going to be a very special trip for several reasons:
1) My dad's sister, Diana, is coming along on her first trip since a school trip in the 70s so we are going to introduce her to the magic!!,
2) We are ALL Disneybounding every single day... that's 84 outfits and a LOT of planning on my part over the last few months!!!
3) I am old enough to legally drink my way around the world and get one of those lapu-lapus
4) This is the first trip I have planned solo and I am pretty proud!
5) This trip was made possible entirely from the success of the home business my mother started last year and we are so proud of her!!


We couldn't be more excited! We will be home (come on y'all... WDW=home) on 12/5-12/16! I am an extreme planner and while at times that may get in the way of the fun that comes with spontaneity, it allowed me to plan this trip with everything we could have wanted! Be Our Guest dinner and Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast ADRs, a BOG lunch fastpasses, Anna+Elsa and 7 Dwarfs Mine Train FP+ reservations, guaranteed time to see EVERY show and eat at every quick service we want without accidentally missing something and a whole lot more that I intend to share with you in the coming weeks in an attempt to further submerse myself in the magic and pixie dust! Hopefully y'all will enjoy sharing this journey with me!

Stay tuned!
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[PadmeNaberie]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pre-Trip:
#1 24 days to go and a lot of luggage tags...
#2 Months of planning have led to this:
#3 The Mickey ears go on TOP!!

 

[PadmeNaberie]

We are now 24 days away!! *squee!!*
The excitement around here is really mounting!!! I made this countdown... thing? when we were still 200 days out and it's so fun to turn every morning!!



I have also made this wreath to go on the door of our cabin:



We plan to put up a lot of little Christmas decorations

Our Magical Express tags have arrived along with our MAGIC BANDS!! They are on display on our mantle! This will be our first trip to use them and we are really excited to see how it goes.


I've been busy packing (yes... I pack early) in between studying (I am a nursing student) and honestly I think more about the trip than school! *oops* At least I have my priorities straight

There's going to be a lot of luggage. Like... a lot. Probably two-three bags (including carry-on) per person. We like to be prepared! And I really love the Disney luggage tags Thankful for Magical Express!!!

Our plan is pretty much set, and I will include a brief look at that in the next post. It's sure been a lot of fun!

 

[Newsies]

Yay! Love catching a TR before it even begins!

Those wreaths are too cute. I can tell you're very crafty and I'm not gonna lie, I'm jealous. I can barely hold a hot glue gun.

What an awesome itinerary! I was lucky enough to snatch up a BoG ressie, A+E FP+, and 7DMT FP+ for my trip too. It's a pretty great feeling. We are the chosen ones and lunch at BoG is REALLY GOOD so I hope you get FP+ for that, too!

You're all Disneybounding ALL days? That's CRAZY. I'm so excited to see all of them

I'm excited to see a Christmastime report. It sounds like you and your family are going to have a fun, cozy Christmas trip in your FW cabin

Subbing

 

[PadmeNaberie]

The Plan!!
Be warned- as I said in the first post, I LOVE to plan!! Some might call me excessive, but what can I say? For those interested, here is our itinerary as of November 10. ​

December 5
We will arrive in Orlando around 11:00am, hopefully be at our cabin by 1:00pm. We have fastpasses for Splash, Peter Pan's Flight, and Space, and an ADR for Spirit of Aloha! This will be a new one for us. We have see Hoop-Dee-Doo in the past and loved it, so we are excited for another dinner show. We LOVE the Polynesian too

December 6
Normally we always want to start our first morning at MK. Sadly though, this is when the ABC Christmas Day parade is predicted to be filmed and while that would be awesome to see, we would hate for our first walk down Main Street to either be A) routed around the back of the buildings or B) EXTREMELY crowded. So, we will be at Animal Kingdom this morning to take advantage of the EMH. Since reading these boards, I've seen a lot of negativity about EMH confused3) but we have always had wonderful experiences so we will be hitting a lot of them. We will see Festival of the Lion King and have fastpasses for Kilamanjaro, Everest, and Dinosaur. We will head over the EPCOT in the evening and maybe see Candlelight Processional with Whoopi Goldberg.

December 7
The parade is still predicted to film today, so another morning without MK yet It's okay though, this will be a full Hollywood Studios day! We have fastpasses for Tower of Terror, RNRC, and Star Tours. We have an ADR for 50's Prime Time Cafe, which will be another new one for us! We will see Fantasmic in the evening.

December 8
FINALLY! A Magic Kingdom morning!! We have an ADR at 10:15 for breakfast at Crystal Palace, which is always a favorite. We then have fastpasses for SDMT, Big Thunder, and Space. We will watch Festival of Fantasy from Frontierland; and then... Be Our Guest for dinner!! SO EXCITED!!! We will close off with MSEP & Wishes

December 9
Time for a full EPCOT day! But first, Chef Mickey's for breakfast. We have fastpasses for Mission: Space, Soarin', and Turtle Talk. Momma and dad have an ADR at Nine Dragons for an early anniversary dinner. We will all meet back up for Illuminations to finish off the night.

December 10
Back to Animal Kingdom in the morning. We will catch the Flights of Wonder show and then head to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon. We have fastpasses for Star Tours, Toy Story, and Tower of Terror. DHS closes at 6:00pm today because of the Pop Warner event, so we will head over to Downtown Disney before our late dinner ADR at Beaches & Cream.

December 11
Everyone is splitting up today to do their own thing! Mom and I have fastpasses for Anna+Elsa and are going to get a pedicure at the Grand Floridian in the evening. We will all meet back up for a wagon ride around the Fort and then have dinner at Trail's End, one of our favorites. We'll head over to the beach to watch the Electrical Water Pageant after dinner.

December 12
Back to the Magic Kingdom! We have an ADR for Cinderella's Royal Table before the park opens so I'm hoping to get some nice photos of a nearly empty Main Street. We will head to Whispering Canyon for dinner, then to EPCOT for Spaceship Earth (I know... not really necessary,) Mission: Space, and Test Track fastpasses.

December 13
We will go to DHS this morning and catch the Indiana Jones show. We will take a break and go back to the hotel in the middle of the day for one of our only breaks to take a quick nap, maybe hit the pool briefly, and rent a golf cart for the day to ride around the Fort. In the past we have always gotten a golf cart for the entire trip, but this time mom will be in an ECV and will have to take the internal buses anyway so we decided to just grab it for a day this time. Magic Kingdom will be open till 2:00am!! I'm a night owl so I am super exited for this We have fastpasses for Space, Pooh, and Peter Pan and a dinner ADR at Liberty Tree Tavern.

December 14
Diana is going to leave in the middle of the day today. We will go to EPCOT in the morning and use fastpasses for Spaceship, Soarin', and Mission: Space. Then we'll head over to DHS in the evening and see the Osbourne Lights!

December 15
Oh no, our last full day We will go to AK in the morning again and catch the Nemo show. We will then head over to MK for a Be Our Guest lunch fastpass and to finish up our trip at our favorite park. We have fastpasses for Jungle Cruise, Splash, and Space and will end the night with MSEP and Wishes.

December 16
NOOO DON'T MAKE ME LEAVE.... We always have breakfast at O'hana on our departure morning. It's just one of our things. We have to be ready for Magical Express at 2:00pm, so if we have time we might sneak over to MK for just another hour or two after breakfast.

 

[PadmeNaberie]

Yay! Love catching a TR before it even begins!

Those wreaths are too cute. I can tell you're very crafty and I'm not gonna lie, I'm jealous. I can barely hold a hot glue gun.

What an awesome itinerary! I was lucky enough to snatch up a BoG ressie, A+E FP+, and 7DMT FP+ for my trip too. It's a pretty great feeling. We are the chosen ones and lunch at BoG is REALLY GOOD so I hope you get FP+ for that, too!

You're all Disneybounding ALL days? That's CRAZY. I'm so excited to see all of them

I'm excited to see a Christmastime report. It sounds like you and your family are going to have a fun, cozy Christmas trip in your FW cabin

Subbing

Thank you! I actually went to an arts high school so that part of me comes out once in a while

And yes, all of us every day! It's been a lot of work and planning, let me tell ya. But I think we will get some awesome pictures! That is, if the boys actually wear it all, haha. But I'm packing for them so they won't really have a choice

 

[Newsies]

Thank you! I actually went to an arts high school so that part of me comes out once in a while

And yes, all of us every day! It's been a lot of work and planning, let me tell ya. But I think we will get some awesome pictures! That is, if the boys actually wear it all, haha. But I'm packing for them so they won't really have a choice

Planning the whole trips, packing for everyone, and making perfect crafts on the regular?

I'm here to talk to you about joining the Avengers initiative.

UPDATE: I just read your plans and WOW, you weren't kidding when you said you like to plan! I try to plan like that but knowing my family, something always goes awry at least once a day

I really hope ya'll stick to this plan cause this looks awesome as HECK. Good for you, girl!

 

[PadmeNaberie]

Haha, thank you!!! I hope we can stick to most of it, because I have it worked out so that we will be able to hit everything we want. Last trip, we missed a few things because we didn't think far enough ahead and I don't want that to happen again

 

[PadmeNaberie]

Hey y'all!

Here in Texas, it is unusually cold for this time of year. Like... in the 40s. I love it! It's a nice break from the broiler that is our 9-month long summer Anyways, the cold weather has got us in the Christmas MOOD! We put up our tree last night!

Here she is, all nekkid-


Normally I wouldn't bore y'all with this, but considering just how Disney it was, I though some of you might like to share

(These pictures are from this morning, which explains why everything is already up)

We started off hanging the stockings, of course. 6 for us, 6 for our doggies. Then came the nativity! It really is a very pretty porcelain nativity, but of course we had to add our own touch to it:


Yes, the angels in this house wear Mickey ears. All in good fun!

Then it was time for our "little blue tree," which is home for our Main Street Electrical Parade ear hat ornaments exclusively! \

They are all in there, I promise. A look at the entire set here

TIME FOR THE TREE!
This is really a huge tree, because over the years we have collected a ton of ornaments- 90% of which are Disney of course






The peacock IS Disney! We got it at World Showcase a few years ago.

And the most important part of all:

The Mickey Eat topper

It was a lovely night with the family. We had on Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas in the background, ate cookies, and drank hot chocolate. 3/4 of us kiddos work, along with both parents (even though they work from home) so it's usually really hard to get us all together for an evening.

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In other Disney news, I got our Mousekeeping tips ready today:

I have 11 of these little suckers all ready to set out!

Also, the MagicBands are still on display in their rightful place on the mantle; I only took them down to get a good photo of the Mickey angel


I have also started making little cards with the daily plan on them that each person will have with them each day. That way in case we decide to split up, we know generally where the rest of the group will meet up.

That's all for now folks!