Never say Neverland: Easter '18, May/June '18, July '18, Sept '18, Nov '18 TRs (8/22 UPDATE!)

Easter Trip Update...we are 14 days away!

Really I haven't made too many changes. Here is the plan right now.

WEDNESDAY March 28th: Departure day. Since we are driving :car:, and Northern VA traffic is always HORRIBLE :mad:, we'd like to hit the road a little bit early. We may try to take the kids out of school between 1pm and 2pm depending on what they have going on that day. If we can't take them out, then we'll just have to get them at the normal time which would put us on the road at 3:30pm. This is not a great time for travel, but we'll make it work if that's the case. Plan is to drive for as long as possible, probably stop for dinner :cake:somewhere along the way (maybe even in a sit down restaurant and not fast food since it's my son's 18th birthday :bday:) and get a hotel overnight. Minimum stopping point is somewhere in South Carolina.

THURSDAY March 29th: Arrival at Shades of Green afternoon. Check-in and head to Magic Kingdom for a while. Dinner at 5:45pm at Citricos (monorail to GF from MK). After dinner rest of the evening at Magic Kingdom. We have Fastpasses at 2pm for Pirates (let's see the new no-Redhead scene), 3pm Space Mountain and then 10pm 7DMT.

FRIDAY March 30th: I think we'll all try to be up early to hit MK by 7am, which would mean leaving our resort by about 6:30am. That might be tough if we have a late night the night before. Me, DS and FIL are doing the Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour so we need to checkin by 7:45am. The rest of the family can hit the MK for a few hours, and we'll meet up with them after the tour is over. We can either have lunch at MK (maybe Columbia Harbour House) or head to Hollywood Studios (aim for <1pm arrival) for lunch and use our FastPasses there for the day which are: Toy Story Mania (1:30pm), Star Tours (2:30pm) and Tower (3:30pm). Maybe boat to EPCOT for Flower and Garden food booths for dinner or head back to our resort and have dinner there. I have ADRs for Crystal Palace and Grand Floridian Cafe this evening but not sure I'll keep either of them.

SATURDAY March 31st: EPCOT morning, arrival close to 9am opening. Ride Soarin’ standby then Test Track using FastPasses. Explore other areas (Seas), ride The Land (FP+) and have lunch at Sunshine Seasons OR explore the various food booths for Flower and Garden around World Showcase, return later to ride the Seas standby. Back to room for pool/rest. Dinner options at AK (Tiffins ADR) or HS (Hollywood Brown Derby ADR). Magic Kingdom for final evening hours.

SUNDAY April 1st: Last day :(. Check out of resort. Option#1 is breakfast at resort and do a few rides at Hollywood Studios via early entry (8am) before hitting the road. Option #2 is head directly to HS by 8am, ride a few rides, leave at 10am and head to Boma for a nice Easter brunch before hitting the road no later than noon. We have a 10:25am TOT FP+ and 12:15pm RnRC (probably won't use this one).

We will drive straight through coming home, which works out fine when we are coming back to our own beds and we don't have school or work the next day.

Really looking forward to some FLORIDA sun and warm weather. While we have been fortunate to not have the big snow that many to the north (and even south) of us have had this year, the cold and rain and lack of sun does nothing for my mood.



 


I'm sad to report that I have FAILED one member of our party for our upcoming trip. I'm hoping we can work things out somehow, but this may change our EPCOT plans a bit.

Friday afternoon I picked up my youngest son from school and we had an hour to kill before I had to get his sister who was staying after school. We usually find a place to grab a quick snack, so this time it was McDs. Anyway while eating I was browsing our MDE plans when my son pointed out my plans for Saturday at EPCOT...and how all of the FPs were for FIVE people...and not six.

ACK!

In my haste to add my FIL to all of our plans after he bought his ticket and decided to join us, I missed that day.

I tried to add him to the current plans, but sadly I was unable to add a Test Track FP+ for him that morning.

And so we may have to slightly alter our plans for that morning. Knowing that TT is notorious for being down in the morning, we may still have to risk it and just head there first thing and hope it's up and running. We can catch a ride on that FIRST, and then hit Soarin', which shouldn't be too bad yet. That will still leave plenty of time for our FPs at The Seas and the Land (my kids are horrified that I've booked the LAND...but I'm planning on making them suffer through it...or maybe they will just head off to ride TT single rider while we do the Land without them). I do think we'll still be okay, despite the fact that it will be the Saturday of Easter weekend.

I'll still keep trying up until our time there in case I can add him to TT later or at least get an earlier time. You never know. We can also just do single rider on TT instead, maybe after Soarin'. We'll just have to play it by ear that day now.

I feel like such a planning failure but at least my son noticed it and pointed it out so we can make adjustments.

I did manage to adjust all of my other FP+s to have us all on one timeframe for the most part. I had a few where I had split us into parties of 2 and 4 to get good times, but I went back through them and modified the party of 5s and 4s to add the others into that group...and I think for all of them I was able to get the same times or close to them so we are all set there. My son had actually questioned that first...why is this 2 and 4 and then he noticed it. It was during that where he also noticed the 5 people...and no 1 person to go with those on that same day.

 
So I had a post yesterday with a slightly revised schedule, and when I "posted" it, it disappeared. Of course. So I'll try to create it again.

These are just a few of the changes I have in mind for this trip now. They are in
GREEN.

THURSDAY March 29th: Arrival at Shades of Green late morning/early afternoon. Check-in and head to Magic Kingdom for a while. Dinner at 5:45pm at Citricos (monorail to GF from MK). After dinner rest of the evening at Magic Kingdom. We have Fastpasses at 2pm for Pirates (let's see the new no-Redhead scene), 3pm Space Mountain and then 10pm 7DMT.

FRIDAY March 30th: I think we'll all try to be up early to hit MK by 7am, which would mean leaving our resort by about 6:30am. That might be tough if we have a late night the night before. Me, DS and FIL are doing the Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour so we need to checkin by 7:45am. The rest of the family can hit the MK for a few hours, and we'll meet up with them after the tour is over. We can either have lunch at MK (maybe Columbia Harbour House) or head to Hollywood Studios (aim for <1pm arrival) for lunch and use our FastPasses there for the day which are: Toy Story Mania (1:30pm), Star Tours (2:30pm) and Tower (3:30pm). Maybe boat to EPCOT for Flower and Garden food booths for dinner or head back to our resort and have dinner there. I have ADRs for Crystal Palace and Grand Floridian Cafe this evening but not sure I'll keep either of them. I also have a late ADR for Tiffins (almost 8pm) and was thinking maybe we check it out for light food/dessert (I'll have to check out the dessert offerings) just to try it. Now that AK is open until 11pm, maybe we hang out late at night there or at least try ONE ride on FOP via standby or FPs if I can get them that day.

SATURDAY March 31st: If we have not been out too late the night before, it might be fun to try an early entry at AK this morning...at least to see BABY TIGERS, maybe do the Safari, EE and Dinosaur all standby. Once crowds build, we'll need to escape and head to our next park...EPCOT. It's going to be tough I think to do much here standby, but we can maybe do Test Track single rider and Soarin' standby? Also Mission: Space is a huge one for my family so we'll have to ride that also. Our first FP isn't until almost 1pm, and probably not needed at The Seas. If we didn't do Soarin' earlier, we also have a 2pm FP+ for it. Sometime during our time here, we can explore the Flower and Garden booths around the World Showcase for lunch and we have a 3pm FP+ for SE that we can do maybe on the way out. Head back for a brief break at our resort. Around 5:30pm, head over to Magic Kingdom for our last night there. We have dinner at the Plaza, and then we can do rides until park closing at 11pm.

SUNDAY April 1st: Last day :(. Check out of resort. Option#1 is breakfast at resort and do a few rides at Hollywood Studios via early entry (8am) before hitting the road. Option #2 is head directly to HS by 8am, ride a few rides, leave at 10am and head to Boma for a nice Easter brunch before hitting the road no later than noon. We have a 10:25am TOT FP+ and 12:15pm RnRC (probably won't use this one). *Just a note that I really like option 2 here, do a few things at HS on Standby as our Easter Morning fun, then head to Boma for a nice big meal before hitting the road home.

So that's a slightly updated plan for us. Honestly almost hopped a flight to Florida TODAY. They had $19 one-way fares to Florida and back for today and Wed/Thurs and they are calling for snow here...a few inches, but hard to say since it was almost 60 degrees yesterday. So it's going to be a cold, wet, heavy snow if anything, may or may not affect the roads, and of course I am not even driving my own vehicle right now as my son is still driving my SUV, I have my husbands much larger SUV, and my husband has borrowed his dad's Camry for the day so he doesn't have to drive his convertible in the snow!

Just when I thought we would get ZERO measurable snow this season...looks like it just might happen this time if you can believe all of the local hype. I drove to work in the rain though.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this:
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So this has been a nice short work and school week for us.

This was yesterday. Schools and work was cancelled and around 8am the ground looked like the photo on the left. People thought the schools were nuts...but soon after it would really be coming down FAST and hard and by the end of the day it looked like the photo on the right, after my family cleaned off the driveway:

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We probably had about 6-8 inches of snow when it was all done, and it was a nice heavy snow but with the temps hovering around freezing it meant the roads weren't really too bad when it was done. They were bad when it was really come down hard and heavy all day. We didn't have to go to work and the kids didn't have school so I did some cooking, we played some cards, and we vegged out on Netflix stuff. We finally watched the move Coco...it was good. Just hadn't gotten around to seeing it before so we rented it on Amazon.

Kids enjoyed finally having a big snow this year and got out and did this while it was still snowing:

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We were a little sad that our dog passed away last month and didn't get to enjoy one last snow. She would have LOVED this one. :(

Today work and school were under a delayed opening so we got to all take our time getting out of the house. Just have to put in a 5 hour work day today, and then it's back home and then tomorrow is FRIDAY!


Of course we'll be in Walt Disney World in ONE WEEK! :stitch::tigger::mickeyjum:donald::sulley::ccat::simba:
 
We got this over night on Tuesday/Wednesday. We got about 6 inches and kids were off yesterday. my poor son was so confused. When he went to bed we weren't supposed to get any snow. over night it moved more north then they thought.
 
Honestly almost hopped a flight to Florida TODAY. They had $19 one-way fares to Florida and back for today and Wed/Thurs and they are calling for snow here...a few inches, but hard to say since it was almost 60 degrees yesterday.

And you didn't? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!? :jumping1:

(For what it's worth... I like Plan #2 as well)
 
We got this over night on Tuesday/Wednesday. We got about 6 inches and kids were off yesterday. my poor son was so confused. When he went to bed we weren't supposed to get any snow. over night it moved more north then they thought.

Ah...nice. We knew we were probably going to get something, but they expected it sooner for us...it ended up being an all day Wednesday event. And a lot of it has already melted, such is the way for Spring snow.
And you didn't? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!? :jumping1:

(For what it's worth... I like Plan #2 as well)

I KNOW! Stupid adult responsibilities!!! If you mean Plan#2 for our last day...same here. I like the idea of hitting the park early for Easter Sunday, getting a few rides under our belt, and then settling in for a nice Easter brunch before our drive home on Easter day.
 
Check-in and head to Magic Kingdom for a while.
I am really hoping to meet up here! Going to PM you my # as soon as I finish quoting :)

We have Fastpasses at 2pm for Pirates (let's see the new no-Redhead scene),
:sad2: I guess I want to see it, but not a fan of the fact they changed it so I admit I'm going in with a negative attitude.......

Steve and I enjoyed this; one behind-the-scenes part in particular :goodvibes

I say yes, especially if we didn't get to meet up at MK!

(my kids are horrified that I've booked the LAND.
:laughing: I have a FP booked for Tomorrowland Speedway, not sure why but we haven't done it in ages and it called to me. When the kids find out I know they're going to look at me like :confused3 :eek:
 
I am really hoping to meet up here! Going to PM you my # as soon as I finish quoting :)

We will definitely try, but I am all over the place still with some of our plans. I just made some more changes. Go figure.

:sad2: I guess I want to see it, but not a fan of the fact they changed it so I admit I'm going in with a negative attitude.......

I admit, I normally avoid online sites that might spoil it...but I have already seen the "scene" for good or bad. Oh well.

Steve and I enjoyed this; one behind-the-scenes part in particular :goodvibes

Definitely can't wait. I loved Keys to the Kingdom but with extra emphasis on HM for this tour I know my son will love it.

:laughing: I have a FP booked for Tomorrowland Speedway, not sure why but we haven't done it in ages and it called to me. When the kids find out I know they're going to look at me like :confused3 :eek:

My kids would LOVE that...but I plan to avoid it this time. Sometimes when they want to do that one, I have them go on their own...ok I have done that one time! FPs are very tough for this trip, and I'm determined to keep our late night one at 7DMT on our first day, so that rules out a lot of other FPs for us. I *COULD* give up 7DMT and bank on us arriving for EMH Friday morning and just going 7DMT first thing perhaps. I just don't know if I trust us to make it there quite that early.
 
So as our trip gets closer and closer (we leave in FIVE DAYS) I can't help moving things around a little bit more. the good news is that the kids have mentioned their Wednesday school schedule is like a 2-hour early dismissal day as they are blocking off the afternoon for a teachers-students basketball game. My kids have no interest in that, so that means at the very LATEST I can pick them up around 12pm and they won't miss anything. That means we are on the road early:car: on Wednesday and should be able to get pretty far.

And the changes:



THURSDAY March 29th: Arrival at Shades of Green late morning/early afternoon. Check-in and head to Magic Kingdom for a while. Dinner at 5:45pm at Citricos (monorail to GF from MK). After dinner rest of the evening at Magic Kingdom. We have Fastpasses at 2pm for Pirates (let's see the new no-Redhead scene), 3pm Space Mountain and then 10pm 7DMT. If I really want us to get up early the next morning, I may have to sacrifice the plans to be out late Thursday night and close down the park at midnight. We may ride 7DMT last thing, or I may give it up altogether and bank on riding it early the next morning.

FRIDAY March 30th: I think we'll all try to be up early to hit MK by 7am, which would mean leaving our resort by about 6:30am. That might be tough if we have a late night the night before. Me, DS and FIL are doing the Marceline to MK tour so we need to checkin by 7:45am. The rest of the family can hit the MK for a few hours, and we'll meet up with them after the tour is over. We can either have lunch at MK (maybe Columbia Harbour House) or I have a 12:10pm lunch reservation at Grand Floridian Cafe. This might work out well, since we have people who don't eat meat on Fridays with us but they could have breakfast items like eggs instead at GFC. Head to Hollywood Studios (aim for 1:15pm arrival) for lunch and use our FastPasses there for the day which are: Toy Story Mania (1:30pm), Star Tours (2:30pm) and Tower (3:30pm). Maybe boat to EPCOT for F&G booths for dinner or head back to our resort and have dinner there. I have an ADR for Crystal Palace this evening but will probably cancel. Now that AK is open until 11pm, maybe we hang out late at night there or at least try ONE ride on FOP via standby or FPs if I can get them that day. If not, we

SATURDAY March 31st: If we have not been out too late the night before, it might be fun to try an early entry at AK this morning...at least to see BABY TIGERS, maybe do the Safari, EE and Dinosaur all standby. Leave no later than 11:30am. Head to EPCOT. It's going to be tough I think to do much here standby, but we can maybe do Test Track single rider and Soarin' standby? Also Mission: Space is a huge one for my family so we'll have to ride that also. Our first FP isn't until almost 1pm, and probably not needed at The Seas. I have a lunch reservation at Tutto Italia that we can try here, but it would mean giving up The Seas FPs, something we missed last time and really want to do this time for my DH. If we didn't do Soarin' earlier, we also have a 2pm FP+ for it. Sometime during our time here, we can explore the Flower and Garden booths around the World Showcase for lunch and we have a 3pm FP+ for SE that we can do maybe on the way out. Head back for a brief break at our resort OR early dinner at Tiffins. Around 5:30pm, head over to Magic Kingdom for our last night there. We have dinner at the Plaza, and then we can do rides until park closing at 11pm.

SUNDAY April 1st: Last day :(. Check out of resort. Option#1 is breakfast at resort and do a few rides at Hollywood Studios via early entry (8am) before hitting the road. Option #2 is head directly to HS by 8am, ride a few rides, leave at 10am and head to Boma for a nice Easter brunch before hitting the road no later than noon. We have a 10:25am TOT FP+ and 12:15pm RnRC (probably won't use this one). OPTION #2 is still my preference.
 
So we are only four days away from our trip. Picked up a few new things from the Disney Store last week including a Dumbo and a Bambi shirt. Guess those will be packed. I also have a collection of new bathing suit tops as mine were too big. Hoping for some pool time this trip, not yet incorporated into my plans. Temps were showing high 80s last time I looked so I'm hopeful.

It sounds like as of now we could really be in Florida Wednesday night and if we really push we could even make Disney property that night. We will see. I cancelled our hotel nights booked in SC and booked some in Jacksonville instead.

Today we are having a special visitor at home. A puppy that we are considering adopting from the same rescue group where we got our last dog. We are the sure if it will work out but we will see.
 
When we drive we have topped at Kingsland, GA. It is the city right next to Jacksonville, FL. It was a nice little city and cheaper then staying in Jacksonville. We don't book a hotel room ahead of time for this. We just find one when we get their.
 
Following along! So fun how you decided to take a trip on a whim! I have thought of doing that on multiple occasions.
 
When we drive we have topped at Kingsland, GA. It is the city right next to Jacksonville, FL. It was a nice little city and cheaper then staying in Jacksonville. We don't book a hotel room ahead of time for this. We just find one when we get their.

Ah...good to know. I'll keep that in mind. I got a pretty good deal on our Jacksonville hotel which is why I booked it, but I can cancel up to 4pm day of arrival so I'll see how I think we are traveling at that time. I'd love to get into Orlando even if it means getting in really, really late.

Following along! So fun how you decided to take a trip on a whim! I have thought of doing that on multiple occasions.

Yes not my first rodeo booking last minute...at least this time we had a few weeks notice. I've booked a flight and left for Florida two hours later (see my other TR) with my daughter. That was also fun.

There will be no other "on a whim" trips now though. Over the weekend our family dynamic changed:
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Harley Quinn arrived on Sunday.

And she is perfect:
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Now if you are wondering about how that affects this trip, no need to worry...we've got it covered thanks to a VERY VERY generous offer from a friend of mine. I can't believe they are crazy enough to take this on, but they have two dogs already (one is a 4 month old puppy) and they are looking for a playmate for her for a few days. They are taking Harley while we are gone, so I need to work in dropping her off for my Wednesday plans. We had a playdate with the other dogs at her house on Sunday and Harley had a BLAST with her dog...they wore each other out. She's going to be in great hands I'm sure...and probably won't want to come home to us where all we have are four cats who do not want anything to do with her.

So that's our news!



 
Ah...good to know. I'll keep that in mind. I got a pretty good deal on our Jacksonville hotel which is why I booked it, but I can cancel up to 4pm day of arrival so I'll see how I think we are traveling at that time. I'd love to get into Orlando even if it means getting in really, really late.

We drive from Northeast Ohio so we leave at about 4am and get to Kingsland at about 6 or 7pm. Stay the night and then leave at 6 am to get to disney around 9-10am.

I agree with getting there as soon as possible. Our first 3 trips we drove straight through to Disney. Those drives were rough and long.
 
So on the one hand, I'm totally looking forward to this weather:

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Especially since yesterday morning it was 27 degrees and I had to scrape my car windows.

On the other hand...wow the reports about the crowds right now...they are quite scary! :eek::eek::eek:

I am suddenly happen we plan to arrive a little earlier on Thursday, but it sounds like there won't be a whole lot for us to do there without FPs. I am thinking of giving up our evening 7DMT FP+, and booking something earlier in the day just so we can get more FPs afterwards. Then again, it sounds like maybe 10pm at night will be a good time to be at the park over the afternoon. I'm envisioning more pool and relaxation at the resort time for this trip for sure.

I did modify one of my FPs for Thursday, making it earlier, and cancelled a planned meal elsewhere. It sounds like if we want to eat we'll be better off leaving the parks and heading to food places outside instead, which is fine with me. I'm all good with eating at Contempo Cafe or Capt Cooks or even trying other Resort fast food places to escape the crowds.


 

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