Three Generations of Disney Princessess-preparing for an April 2018 trip

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Hello everyone! I am so excited to be back in planning mode for another Disney adventure. Those of you who read my trip report from our May big family trip knew that this girls trip was already a work in progress. So here's the backstory of how this trip developed. This past May we took a big family trip and by big I mean my husband and I along with our daughter, my parents, one of my brothers, my grandparents from my dad's side, and my grandma from my mom's side. It took us about two years to plan that trip and we had an absolute blast. In the final months leading up to that trip we pretty much had all of the planning accomplished so my dad, the planner extraordinaire started talking about what vacation should look like in 2018. He really wanted to take my brothers on a guys trip to tour a few major league baseball stadiums. They are sports fanatics! We had done a similar trip when us kids were younger but he wanted to try out a few new places. We agreed that my brothers would really like that trip but that we needed to make sure mom got a good vacation too. My dad made the suggestion of doing a girls only trip with my mom, my daughter, and I. He said we could be gone as long as we liked and go wherever we wanted. It would be totally up to us!

Of course I was so excited thinking of all the places we could go and all of the things we could do. Then my dad had a suggestion to make. It started out like this,
Dad: Well, Natalia will only be two next year
Me: Yeah that's right, there may only be certain places that we can go and keep her entertained
Dad: You know your mom's annual pass doesn't expire until May 8th of next year
Me: Also true, wait are you thinking about our girls trip being to Disney?
Dad: Well as long as you go before May 8th. It really wouldn't be too expensive because you would be the only one that needed a ticket. You could even just make it a long weekend so hotels wouldn't be expensive.
Me: Well it's settled then, we are going to Disney!
Dad: you better make sure it's what your mom is going to want to do before you get too excited
Me: When has mom ever said no to Disney?

And so it began, the planning for my 16th trip to the World! My mom came over that evening and was super excited to start the planning. She didn't even hesitate one bit when I proposed the idea to her. Duh, we are a Disney family! I believe this trip will be her 25th. Now let's meet the three princesses......

First, there's me, Amber. I am a 27 year old Registered Nurse who is also attending school full-time to get a master's degree in nursing education. Like I said, this will be my 16th trip to the World. My wonderful husband of 5 years puts up with my Disney addiction but really isn't much of a Disney fan. We have a wonderful daughter named Natalia who I will introduce to you shortly. My favorite Disney character has always been and will always be Tinkerbell. My favorite resort is Wilderness Lodge with Old Key West coming in a close second. My favorite park is Animal Kingdom right now but this is constantly changing. I don't have a favorite ride because I pretty much like them all. My favorite restaurant is Le Cellier and my favorite show is Illuminations by far. It just isn't a trip to Disney without watching Illuminations.

Next, we have my daughter Natalia who will be two at the time of the trip. She is full of energy and has been in love with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse since birth (that may have been forced on her). This will be her second trip to the World and we are so excited to see how her interests have changed. Her favorite character is Mickey Mouse. Her favorite ride on the last trip was definitely The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and her favorite show was probably The Hoop De Doo Revue She loves music and dancing. Her favorite restaurant on this last trip was The Plaza. She also loved meeting Pooh and Friends at Crystal Palace.

Last but definitely not least, we have my mom who is currently an annual passholder. This will be around her 25th trip to the World. She is one of the key forces behind our family's Disney addiction. Her favorite ride is Thunder Mountain RailRoad. I think her favorite resort is Wilderness Lodge as well. I'm not sure about her favorite restaurant or show but she will probably have a hard time choosing.

We don't have a picture of just the three of us so for now this family one will have to do! I am the one in the bright colored dress. I'm holding Natalia. My mom is in the black shirt.


Stay tuned as I post our journey through the planning and booking process leading up to our girls trip!

 

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Here is an overview of our preliminary plans which will likely change multiple times in the next 8 months leading up to the trip:

We put a lot of thought into picking when we were going to have our adventure. Mom's annual pass expires on May 8th so we wanted to make sure we were clear of that by a couple of days just to make sure it didn't expire while we were there. That would be tragic! On our last trip we arrived on what would be the weekend before that and a cheerleading competition was going on. Crowds were a bit higher than we were used to at that time so we decided to just avoid that time altogether this trip. When we looked up the calendar of events for 2018 there was also a cheerleading competition the week before that so we decided to move on back into April. The problem with April is that Easter falls on April 1st next year so undoubtedly some schools will have late spring breaks. This took the beginning of April out of the running. March is definitely spring break time and January/February is too cool for us. that only left us with a narrow window of opportunity in mid-April. We plan to fly from Indianapolis to Orlando on Wednesday April 18th and stay until Sunday April 22nd.

Being that it will be such a short trip and we live about 16 hours away, it just makes more sense to fly even though the closest airport is 3 hours away. We are hoping to score a direct flight with Southwest but won't know for sure until the end of this month when the flights become available. After we land we will take the Magical Express to All Star Movies and check in before spending the evening in Disney Springs. Our priority parks for the weekend will be Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom because there is more for Natalia to do there. We do have a quick trip to Hollywood Studios planned for the new old-time Mickey ride that is taking place of the Great Movie Ride. Natalia is obsessed with the old fashioned Mickey cartoons and will definitely love the ride. We will also plan to spend one evening in Epcot because as I said in my intro, I can't go to Disney and not see Illuminations.

We picked All Star Movies as our resort for a number of reasons. I have not stayed there since I was really young but I remember loving the theming. Since it is just the three of us then we don't really need a lot of space and can't see a reason to pay the extra money for it. We also plan to take of advantage of the great food court too. Anytime we try to think of which resorts have the best bus service we always think of the All Star resorts. It seems like the buses are almost constant between the resorts and parks. My parents are staying at All Star Movies this September to check it out and see if it is as we remember it.

Like I said before, I will be the only one that needs a ticket and it will be a park hopper of course. We also plan to take advantage of the park to park bus service that is being offered. This seems like it will make park hopping so much easier with a young one. My parents will also be trying this out in September to see if it is worth it. There is no need for a dining plan because my mom and I have the same views when it comes to eating on vacation. Eat a big breakfast, snack around for lunch, and eat dinner on the go. Most of our meals will be quick service although we do have one character meal planned at Chef Mickey's.

 

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Hello again, we have constructed a preliminary itinerary for the trip which is subject to many revisions over the next few months.

Wednesday April 18th
Late morning/early afternoon flight from Indianapolis to MCO (preferably with no pit stops along the way)
Magical Express to All Star Movies
Check-in, throw our stuff in the room, and change from our cold weather Illinois clothes into more Florida-appropriate attire
Bus to Disney Springs
Dinner at Blaze followed by shopping, shopping, and more shopping
Thursday April 19th
Breakfast in the food court at All Star Movies
Magic Kingdom
Snack around for lunch then head back to the resort so Natalia can have a good nap
Back to Magic Kingdom with dinner somewhere in the park
Use Express Transportation to Hollywood Studies for the new Mickey ride and TSM
Friday April 20th
Breakfast in the food court again
Animal Kingdom
Snack around for lunch then head back to the resort so Natalia can have a good nap
Animal Kingdom
Bus to Beach Club for dinner at Beaches N'Cream
Walk to Epcot and hit up a few rides before staking out a spot for Illuminations
Saturday April 21st
Breakfast at Chef Mickey's (hopefully around 8)
Magic Kingdom
Snack around for lunch then head back to the resort so Natalia can have a good nap
Animal Kingdom
Dinner at Rain Forest Café or Restaurantosaurus
Express Transportation back to Magic Kingdom for fireworks
Sunday April 22nd
Breakfast in Food Court
Magic Express back to airport for our flight home

 

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Also, just a quick question for all of my fellow Disers. I usually post my pictures via photobucket but as you can see with the one I posted above, they are no longer allowing posting of pictures on third-party sites. When I clicked the link it said I would have to pay $399 per year to have a subscription that would allow me to do this. totally not worth that to me! Do you have any suggestions for posting pictures on threads? I would like to find another website to use by the time this trip rolls around! TIA

 

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Our planning got a little more intense today as the option to book flights for our days became available with Southwest today! We have been anxiously and not so patiently awaiting this day for quite some time as it kind of makes the trip feel more real when you have your flights booked. For the past couple of months flights have been available with Southwest through April 8th. So close to our dates but not quite there. We had done a "trial" booking using dates in the middle of March feeling like it would be similar in pricing to the time we were planning to go in April. We knew that flights during that time were about $74 each way which is pretty cheap. The only requirements we had were that:

1. The flight had to be a non-stop flight. We didn't want layovers with a two year old.
2. We wanted to fly out of Indianapolis. We are about three hours from the closest major airports which include Chicago O'Hare, Chicago Midway, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. O'Hare is always a disaster with too many people in a very large, unorganized airport. We absolutely hate O'Hare and it is always a last resort for us. Midway doesn't have flights to MCO sadly. St. Louis only has a couple nonstop flights to Orlando but with very odd times. Most flights to Orlando put you at flying from St. Louis to O'Hare (totally defeats the purpose for us, we could drive to O'Hare just as easy) then to Orlando. Indianapolis is our favorite airport and one of the few in our area that actually has Southwest flights. There are also frequent nonstop flights as well.
3. No super early flights and no middle of the night flights-just too hard with a toddler.
4. Southwest was our number one choice for airline but if we had to choose a second we would have to go with United. I have had so many issues with airlines in the past that there are a few I will NEVER fly on again including Spirit airlines and American Airlines. Two of the more popular ones in the airports near us.

So I got up around 6 this morning hoping to be up before Natalia so that I could get a chance to take a good look at the flight options for our dates. I was extremely disappointed to find that the prices were a lot higher than the previous month and we were very limited on flight times. Leaving on Wednesday out of Indianapolis could cost us $103 a piece if we left at 8 am. We live three hours from the airport and Indianapolis is actually an hour ahead of us timewise. Too early for a toddler. Looking at our ideal leaving time of 11ish would cost as $175 a piece, on a Wednesday . Any later times were upwards of $200 a piece. Returning on Sunday was even more ridiculous. The cheapest flight was $140 at 8 am which puts us on the Magical Express at an ungodly time of morning. The next cheapest time was 10 pm which would put us back way too late for my mom to go to work the next day. Quite depressed we accepted the fact that maybe it would be better to come back Saturday evening because then it wouldn't matter how late we got back since we would have time to recover on Sunday. Flights on Saturday night were much more up our alley in the lower $100's. The more we thought about it we realized that both of us had the Tuesday before the trip off of work so we looked at pricing for flights on that day. We ended up scoring a 3:25 pm flight out of Indianapolis for $74 a piece. This would put us on the ground in Orlando at 5:40 pm which still leaves us plenty of time for Disney Springs in the evening. Since we were going down a day earlier we are no longer planning park time for Saturday which gave us free reign for flight times on Saturday knowing that it is cheaper than Sunday. We were able to book a flight leaving Orlando at 11:30 am and landing in Indianapolis at 1:50 pm. That flight only costs us $103 a piece. Successful booking with only a couple of minor changes to our itinerary!

 

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Hello everyone, just another quick update! My dad was messing around on the Disney website and noticed resorts are filling up quickly for pretty much any time between now and next May. This got us worried so we decided to go ahead and book our resort. We know from past experiences that if a discount comes out after we book we can just give Disney a call. When it came to choosing which resort to stay at we had a few things to take into consideration:

1. We will only have two adults and a two year old so there was really no need for space
2. Being that we will have a two year old we wanted a resort with limited required walking
3. Definitely need a ground floor room
4. Good bus service is a must
5. A food court would be ideal

Since we aren't too high maintenance and we spend limited amount of time in our room anyways we decided to go with a value resort this time around. Pop was immediately eliminated because we always seem to have problems when we stay there (buses, rooms, etc). AoA was eliminated too because we didn't need a family suite and the regular rooms require a lot of walking. That left us with the All-Stars. We initially picked ASMovies because we thought Natalia would love the theming there but when we went to book ASMovies was $20 more per night than Sports or Music so we decided to go with Music and save ourselves $100 plus taxes. It was still pretty pricey considering but we were afraid to wait much longer!