Oy with the poodles already! A mom & daughter celebration in WDW

[ksinniger]

So, you know how the planning for these things go, right? First you realize you want to go to WDW (or, if you’re like me, you wake up, because every day is a day spent wanting to go to WDW). So you pick a date and settle on a place to stay. Then you switch it up maybe one or two times to get a better airfare or a different resort for a better price. Then you stalk the Disney website for them to release the operating times for your trip, while scouring the crowd calendars to see which parks you want to hit on which days. Then it’s on to deciding meals and FP+s. Until finally, your trip is planned, and all you’re left to do is wait impatiently for that countdown ticker to get to zero. So close now – just 4 days away!

Yea, that’s where I am these days, so I decided to try and distract myself from the S-L-O-W passage of time by starting this here TR, even though the trip isn't quite yet started. Feel free to drop me suggestions or insight – while our plans are pretty set, there is definitely still room (and time) to move things around!

To start: some introductions. I’m Kathy, mom to 3 girls who are inheriting my Disney obsession. My DH isn’t nearly as obsessed, but he definitely has fun on the trips, so long as I do all the planning. We had a momentous 2014, with 3 trips in 11 months. I’ve got a Trip Report from our last trip up here. (http://www.disboards.com/threads/8-nights-at-the-contemporary-with-memere.3386984/).

This trip is just me and my oldest Daughter, Rachel. We’re going to celebrate her “graduation” from elementary school to secondary school (combined middle and high school). That’s in quotes because they didn’t have a graduation ceremony, but had a promotion ceremony where awards were handed out and they played pomp and circumstance, so I’m counting it as graduating!

I started planning the trip only a few weeks after we got back from our trip last November. At Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law mentioned that she and her family were planning on heading down over the summer. Her 3 kids are all much older than mine, with one working full-time college graduate, one U.S. Marine, and one college junior. She asked if we were interested in joining, and my gears started turning. I knew my DH wouldn’t be up for another trip so soon, especially after we had gone 3 times in 2014. But we bought DVC points, so we had 100 points for 2014 already banked for use in 2015 that needed to be used before the end of 2015. Rachel and I had a lot of fun on our last night of the November trip, when she and I did some late night exploring of the Osborne lights and last minute shopping on MK Main Street. She’s certainly old enough to stay out late, but when we travel all together, her younger sisters get tired if they are up late and don’t have a chance to make up for it the next day. I thought it might be fun for her to tour with others who could stay up past 9 pm and then still get up for rope drop the next day. So DH and I talked it over, and we decided I would use all of the 2014 points, plus some 2015 points, and take Rachel to Disney at the same time that her cousins would be there.

And this would all be a surprise that she wouldn’t know about until the last day of school. At the end of June. I didn’t know if I could hold it in that long.

 

[ksinniger]

I had a lot of planning to do, and that’s a big part of the fun for me. But this was going to be HER trip, so I wanted it to be special for her. So, over the course of the next few months, I would randomly ask her questions. “Is there anything you wish we had done but didn’t get to do in Disney?” “Is there a restaurant you really want to eat at?” “What’s more important, characters or rides?” She probably thought I was nuts.

But it was all part of the plan. I knew I wanted to stay somewhere other than Bay Lake Tower, even though that’s where our points are. My SIL wasn’t sure if all of her family was going to stay at Shades of Green or not, so I went onto the DVC site at my designated day, and saw availability for a studio at Beach Club Villas. Cool – Rachel would love Storm-A-Long Bay, plus one of the things she mentioned wanting to do was go to Beaches and Cream! Of course as soon as I got the reservation set, my SIL called and said they needed to push the dates back, as my niece had to be at school. OK, I waited until the new designated day, called member services and voila, we were all set. I went ahead and purchased our tickets at that point, too. I got us 6 day tickets, knowing that our last day wouldn’t be a park day, and that we were going to hit a waterpark and DTD on one day. I didn’t think we’d need the hopper, and adding that plus the waterparks onto the tickets was more than just buying 1-day waterpark tickets (especially with the DVC discount).

Next up was airfare. We really liked flying JetBlue, for the free TV programming and snacks, and because we can fly out of Washington National, instead of driving all the way to BWI for the similarly priced Southwest. I was able to use some points we had and get us tickets at a very reasonable price. The bones of the plan were in place:

Depart Saturday, August 15 at 7 am – Arrive MCO at 9:11. Check in at Beach Club Villas for stay through Saturday, August 22. Return flight home at 3 pm on the 22nd.

That’s when the fun REALLY started. My 180 day ADR day was fast approaching, and my SIL still wasn’t sure which of her group would be eating which meals together. Plus, she didn’t have her tickets yet, so I needed to make the reservations for 7 if we were all going to eat together or else we knew they’d be gone by the time she was able to make them. We decided on a couple of reservations for all of us, but the rest I made just for Rachel and me.

 

[ksinniger]

This is what I started out with:

Sunday 8/16 – Cape May Café @5:30ish for 7

Monday 8/17 – Beaches & Cream @6:30ish for 2

Tuesday 8/18 – Brown Derby Fantasmic Package @5:45 for 2

Wednesday 8/19 – Dinner at BOG @5 for 2

Thursday 8/20 – Dinner at Wolfgang puck Café @5ish for 2

Friday 8/21 – Lunch at San Angel Inn @12 for 2
Dinner at Chefs de France @6:30ish for 2

Saturday 8/22 – Breakfast at ‘OHANA @9:30 for 7

Of course, as soon as I had all the reservations made, it was time for changing them around. My SIL found a great deal for the Beach Club, so she, her husband (BIL) and my niece would stay there, while her sons stayed at Shades of Green. She made reservations for all 7 of us at BOG for lunch on the Wednesday, and made a reservation for 7 at Kona for just about the same time as the one for ‘OHANA. I was also waiting for Disney to open up its reservations for the Wishes Dessert party – once they opened, I made a reservation for 5, for me, Rachel, my niece and my nephews. I figured this was all more or less tentative, because I wanted Rachel to have a say as well. But I was pretty sure, from my sleuthing, that she’d be happy with most of these.

So, dining was set, we’d have beds to sleep in and tickets to get into the parks. Now I just needed to set out a touring plan for each park. I generally follow the recommendations from Josh at easywdw.com, but I’m not afraid to go to a non-recommended park—I just know going in that I’ll need extra patience!

 

[ksinniger]

So, I started our itinerary. Gotou FP+ reservations, then changed the lineup based on new announced closures (Boo!) and new events like the return of Frozen Fun (hooray!). So what follows is where we are now, with just 4 days to go:

Arrival day – BCV until room is ready, then Epcot. Get to BCV, swim in SAB, gt mani/pedis t th Salon, and eat lunch at Hurricane Hanna’s; hope room is ready by 3. Get changed and head over to Epcot around 3:30. Do Imagination, Land and Seas, and Character Spot. (We have FP+ for Soaring, Nemo and Character Spot.) Have dinner in UK (fish & chips), and have a cronut for dessert. Not watching Illuminations tonight, try and be in bed by 10ish to conserve energy. But we may get distracted by meet and greets in the UK pavilion.

Sunday – MK Day, with a pool/nap break in the middle. Get to the park in time for rope drop, but hang back in a good spot to see the Welcome Show. Once inside, head to Peter Pan then Winnie the Pooh, since we never get to see those queues (always use FP+), then head over to have breakfast in Gaston' Tavern, and get in line for meeting Gaston. After that, head to Ariel (FP+ for M&G) and the Storybook Circus area, then work our way back up to the rest of Fantasyland (FP+ for 7DMT). Have lunch at Columbia Harbor House, do Haunted Mansion with FP+, then head back to BCV for some pool or nap time (but try and get a 4th FP+ for later). Dinner at Cape May with the whole group, then back to MK for Adventureland and the Meet and Greets in Town Square. Back to BCV relatively early, or not if Rachel is game for late night hijinks. May try to get in a few rides on BTMRR.

Monday – AK Day. Be at AK for rope drop, and head straight to Everest, ride until the wait gets longer than 15 minutes. Head over to the safari with FP+, then to Dinoland (FP+ for Dinosaur). Hit the late morning Flights of Wonder show, then have lunch at Flame Tree. Do Kali (FP+), then hit the 2 jungle treks before seeing Nemo and Lion King. Close out with It’s Tough to Be A Bug and any Meet & Greets we can squeeze in before 5:30. Dinner at Beaches and Cream, then maybe check out the Boardwalk and/or swim. Maybe walk to DHS to watch Frozen Fireworks from the Anna & Elsa topiaries.

Tuesday – DHS. Hit rope drop (again!). Head straight to RNRC. Ride once, then maybe twice (depending on wait time). Do TOT (FP+), GMR, Frozen Welcome Parade, then TSMM (FP+). Hit Star Tours and Muppets, then have lunch at Backlot Express. Watch Indiana Jones show (before it possibly goes away forever), then head back to BCV for nap. We’ll try to get back to DHS for one of the Olaf summer cool down shows, and Characterpalooza if it becomes a regular thing again, but really only NEED to be back for our Brown Derby Reservation. We have the Fantasmic package, but we’re going to play by ear whether we use the passes for the first show or spread some pixie dust and actually watch the second show. Either way, we have FP+ for the 7:30 Frozen Sing-A-Long, and we’ll also try and see the Frozen Fireworks, with sound.

Wednesday – MK and Wishes dessert party. This is our morning to sleep in a little, get to MK when we can, and just enjoy Main Street. We want to see the Dapper Dans, get Rachel’s silhouette made, and do some serious shopping. We have FP+ for BTMRR and Splash, which we’ll do back to back before grabbing lunch, probably at Sleepy Hollow. Rachel decided not to do BOG for both lunch and dinner; she opted for dinner so we can meet the Beast. After lunch, we’ll either ride the Liberty Bell and watch Country Bears or head over to Tom Sawyer’s Island. The plan is to grab a spot for FOF in Frontierland, across from the Pin Traders, and take turns checking out pins before the Parade starts. After that, we’ll take the Railroad over to Storybook Circus area and take the back path to Tomorrowland for our FP+ at Space Mtn. We should have enough time to ride TTA and grab a 4th FP+ for another Tomorrowland ride before we head over to BOG for dinner. After dinner, it’s back to Tomorrowland to ride until it’s time to check in to the Dessert Party. If we’re up for it, we’ll watch the second MSEP after the party, and maybe even ride until they kick us out. I’d love to see the kiss goodnight, but that will depend on Rachel’s stamina.

Thursday – Water Park & Downtown Disney. This is the one day I DON’T have a super detailed plan for. Rachel wants to try and hit both water parks, but she wants Blizzard Beach more so we’ll head there first. If we can get through all the slides before noon, we’ll head over to Typhoon Lagoon for lunch and stay there until we’re ready to hit DTD. We have early-ish reservations at the Boathouse, which is good because we’ll be able to walk off dinner by shopping. We may go see a movie this night, or bowl, or do Characters in Flight. Who knows!

Friday – Epcot. This is our last day in the parks, so we plan to stay all day. We’ll head straight to Test Track and try to ride twice (once in stand-by and once using our FP+). Then we’ll design a rollercoaster in Sum of All Fears before heading to Mission Space (FP+). After that, my tummy will need the long break of Ellen’s Energy Adventure, after which we’ll head onto SE with a FP+. Rachel decided she didn’t want to do lunch at San Angel Inn, so I dropped that one – we’ll snack our way around the world until dinner time, starting at Mexico. We’ll try to hit one of the mid-afternoon Voices of Liberty shows, meet as many characters as we can, and do the Pick-a-Pearl in Japan. Dinner is still at le Chefs de France. After dinner, we’ll hit Club Cool and MouseGears for any last minute purchases, before finding a spot for Illuminations. There are EMH at Epcot that night, but if Rachel wants to stay with her cousins, I’ll probably head back to start packing.

Saturday – ‘Ohana and Poly visit. After checking our luggage and checking out at Beach Club, we’ll head over to the Poly via MK for breakfast at ‘Ohana with my SIL and neice. I’m hoping that DVC member services will be able to get us a tour of the new DVC rooms (studios and bungalows) afterwards. (When I called they said they couldn't schedule it in advance, because it all depends on whether there are rooms open. So we’ll cross our fingers when we get there on Saturday morning. After that, we’ll probably have time before our pick up by Magical Express, but I don’t have any plans. We could check out the other monorail resorts or just head back to Beach Club to chill. Either way, I’m sure we’ll be exhausted.

 

[ksinniger]

So, there you have it -- as you can see, I am pretty commado in my planning, though it's only to give us a default plan. If we try and go with the flow, we end up with no one making a decision. This way, we have a plan to follow, but we can always jump off plan.

Rachel loved the surprise, by the way. I made a binder for her with our plane reservations and the little trip book WDW sends once you book a vacation. She's been typing up her own notes, using some hidden secrets guide books. Last night, I pulled out the Disney vacation bag, and pulled out all our old magic bands, our pin lanyards, and her pressed penny book. I also discovered close to $20 in Quarters with pennies in my park wristlet, so that's one item already off the to do list! Tonight, I hope to pack 2 of our 3 carry on bags, plus start separating out my clothes. It's crazy to think that in one week, this trip will be more than halfway complete! But I'm not focusing on that right now, because I'm still stuck waiting.

Oh - and as for our trip report title. Points to whomever can ID where it's from (without the use of Google). We decided this would be our code phrase for when the other is being a big ol' cranky pants, or the tension needs to be broken, or we just need a laugh. Guess we'll see how many times we need it soon enough!

 

[BibbitybobityLu]

You had me at poodles! I love Gilmore Girls!

Sounds like a fun trip!

 

[ksinniger]

I've been away from this for too long! We had such an amazing trip, and I've put together the photo album, the collage for the wall, and a half dozen other items from pictures from this trip. But for some reason, I've stayed away from writing this report. But now that I'm stuck inside thanks to Blizzard Jonas, and have nothing I can do for planning this summer's family trip back to world, it's time to start!

And it'll be especially nice to remember a week where my oldest and I didn't bash heads or stomp off annoyed at one another!

 

[maggiepie87]

Following along! You had me hooked when I read one of my favorite lines from Gilmore Girls