A Magical 50th birthday celebration at WDW (and some bonus trips too...6/13 Update)

[kittylady1972]

In one week and a day...I'll be a half century old.

I'll also be in Walt Disney World.

I'm currently debating leaving a day earlier...again...which would mean leaving a week from today. The problem is there are no DVC reservations for Studios available for that time and I don't really want to pay for a room.

It is showing temps in the 90s for next week...so sounds like there will be lots of pool time in our future.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Woohoo not long to go now!
As someone who joined the 50s club a while back I can tell you those birthday celebrations are so much fun! Hope you get to go a day early but even if you don’t you still get to be there on your big day which is simply magical!

 

[kittylady1972]

Woohoo not long to go now!
As someone who joined the 50s club a while back I can tell you those birthday celebrations are so much fun! Hope you get to go a day early but even if you don’t you still get to be there on your big day which is simply magical!

I know...so excited! I'm definitely looking forward to celebrating for sure.

 

[kittylady1972]

So just a quick flashback here back to 2012...yes 10 years ago...in Walt Disney World as I celebrated my birthday:







10 years later...and another big birthday to celebrate.

So why not start it as early as possible right?

We've been discussing potentially leaving a day earlier (that would mean 2 days earlier than our original trip) and so I've been stalking the DVC site because I did have hold points that I had to use and that reservation needed to be within 60 days.

Tonight I found a reservation at Old Key West that used up some of those points. So it's been booked.

Now our flight will be a little more interesting. Changing our current airline flight will be too expensive in terms of points...so instead we are going to look into changing to Spirit Airlines. That means I'll go to the airport tomorrow and try to book our flight.

We won't arrive until evening on Monday now, but that's okay. I'm happy to spend some time in Disney Springs, getting some food, and then sleeping in the next morning since we have nothing planned.

So just have to make sure we get the flights booked tomorrow now.

Stay tuned!

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Fabulous photos! You haven't changed a bit! What's your secret!
I love your "no plan" plans. Sometimes I think it's nice to start a holiday relaxed and doing whatever takes your fancy on the day. Being close to DS gives so many options for eating/drinking/shopping /entertainment. So much happening there and using some dvc points to stay at OKW sounds great when you have to use them anyway. Crossing my fingers you get your flights sorted today

 

[kittylady1972]

Fabulous photos! You haven't changed a bit! What's your secret!
I love your "no plan" plans. Sometimes I think it's nice to start a holiday relaxed and doing whatever takes your fancy on the day. Being close to DS gives so many options for eating/drinking/shopping /entertainment. So much happening there and using some dvc points to stay at OKW sounds great when you have to use them anyway. Crossing my fingers you get your flights sorted today

Awwww...you are too kind. I don't have any secrets...just happy to be alive. Thanks again for checking in and hopefully I can do some live updates when we leave...on MONDAY now!!!

 

[suse66]

So just a quick flashback here back to 2012...yes 10 years ago...in Walt Disney World as I celebrated my birthday:

I agree with Moira, you haven't changed a bit! We are down the same time as you.....from the 13th to the 19th. Maybe we will cross paths!

 

[kittylady1972]

So I thought I'd give a quick live update here of days 1 and 2.

Day 1: Travel Day. Overall went well. Flight arrived on time, albeit a bumpy landing. Our luggage was some of the first out...even though it wasn't on the carousel they indicated but we noticed and found it. Rental car went well and we got the last one of our car class...and tonight we learned why the tire may have been overly inflated. Chef Mickey dinner was great...not much character interaction for our corner but honestly I just really like their food. Got a birthday button and birthday cupcake. Stay at Old Key West was nice.


Day 2: Happy birthday to me. We changed our original plan of staying in due to lack of tickets to do a park instead. Plan was to hop. That didn't happen. There were many disappointments today mostly by Disney. I'm sad that even I am becoming a bit jaded to their money grubbing ways. It's no longer guest focused. So I chose to focus only on the positives. Steakhouse 71 lived up to the hype for our breakfast. OMG. Best time to tour MK was after 6pm. They need to stop really artifically overinflated some of their lines esp in the evening...it's horrible. 7DMT showed 70 minutes and it was clear it wsan't that long...we waited 20. Another poor family walked by and saw that wait and turned away...we told them to ride that the real wait was likey 20 TOPS. Best time also to tour MK is during the fireworks. Genie+/LL our first time using it....well we got to skip a few lines. And shout out to Shades of Green who came through on a GREAT meal for us for my birthday dinner when we couldn't eat at our planned Disney restaurant. Great wine, great food, and we spent less than 100 dollars for the meal that included steak and shrimp and a bottle of wine.

The good news is that thanks to Disney's policy they will likely get less of our money this trip than usual. Can't park hop...no big deal we won't be eating and drinking as much because of lack of choices for us at one park.

Our room at Boardwalk...well the 2nd one because the first one had issues that resulted in my possibly ruining my clothes by accident...seems okay. The Speedway near MK...never stopped there in all our years here but stopped twice today, once to get a large case of water for about $7 and the second time to put air in the car tire and right now we are unsure if it will be drivable tomorrow...so we are taking tomorrow as a day off. That's again thanks to Disney's poor policy on tickets. No APs. No problem we will learn to stick to one park a day this trip and we'll learn to enjoy the free stuff at various resorts and spend a lot of time at Shades of Green and maybe doing some non Disney stuff yet again.

Ok it's late and I'm tired and we'll see what our no park day three holds.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

I’m glad you had a fabulous birthday dinner and I love your attitude in focusing on the positives! Here’s hoping your birthday trip gets better and better
Think there’s quite a lot of us feeling a bit jaded by money grabbing Disney and I’ve seen others also comment that the wait times are over-inflated to encourage people to purchase Disney Genie (nothing would surprise me anymore).
I’m crossing my fingers that your car is drivable and that your day is wonderful
Welcome to the 50’s club

 

[kittylady1972]

Long overdue update...day 7 of our trip. Kids and FIL arrived yesterday a bit late due to a plane emergency landing at their departure airport due to smoke in the cockpit. We picked them up around 930am and headed to breakfast at Steakhouse 71 which sadly was NoT as good as Tuesday. I don't know what happened but their signature grits were awful this time.

It was pouring rain initially but it dried up enough for us to hit AK for a little bit. We then ended up canceling our Toledo dinner when we snagged a last minute Chef Mickey dinner which DID deliver like it did Monday night.

Today the temps are bitter cold in FL but we still hit HS for early opening and got quite a bit done before heading back to SoG to chill...or really warm up...for a bit.

Happy to have more family here now and we will deal with the cold for the next day or two as at home there is snow on the ground.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Great photo!

 

[kittylady1972]

So today is our last night here. This trip has been a different trip that wasn't focused as much on parks as past trips. I think not having the ability to hop made us change the way we toured. That wasn't a bad thing.

For the most part we did parks either early or late. When we rooe dropped we got most stuff done. Also last night at MK for the 2 extra hours we got in the parks for Deluxe Resort guests was great. We spent a lot of time at our resort pool and playing a lot of corn hole.

For our last day tomorrow it is looking like a hot one. We have plans to hit HS early and then maybe hang at the resort pool. Dinner is at Disney Springs and I likely won't cancel it.

Of all my ADRs going into this trip a lot were moved and new ones were booked. We had a few repeat meals this trip. We snagged a few good last minute ADRs at Chef Mickey and Crystal Palace.

Hopefully I'll do an update eventually after we return.

For now here are a few recent photos including our closing down of MK last night at 1am.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Sounds like you’ve had a lovely time. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the changes to visiting the parks these days. Your space mountain photo is brilliant. Made me laugh . Love the fireworks photo too. How busy is MK during the extra evening hours?

 

[kittylady1972]

Sounds like you’ve had a lovely time. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the changes to visiting the parks these days. Your space mountain photo is brilliant. Made me laugh . Love the fireworks photo too. How busy is MK during the extra evening hours?

We had a great time overall and thanks!

MK during the extra evening hours is AWESOME. Granted it is only two hours but a lot of the rides were walk on for the most part or a short wait. We were able to do Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan and BTMRR pretty quickly. 7DMT posted 55 minutes but we waited only about 25 or so, probably should have saved it for very last. Space MT we did early on and posted about 40 I think but we waited closer to 20 then also. The MK park overall was very empty.

 

[kittylady1972]

So eventually I hope to get around to doing an actual trip report for this big 12 days! Weather here back home in MD looking blah for the next day or so but got a lot going on.

Actually have been busy planning the next two trips, the first one being a June trip to celebrated my youngest child graduating from high school...that is if he makes it. SIGH.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

So eventually I hope to get around to doing an actual trip report for this big 12 days! Weather here back home in MD looking blah for the next day or so but got a lot going on.

Actually have been busy planning the next two trips, the first one being a June trip to celebrated my youngest child graduating from high school...that is if he makes it. SIGH.

Fingers crossed for the youngest child graduating . Exciting to have 2 trips to look forward to. Looking forward to your trip reports.

 

[kittylady1972]

So it's now April and I'm still slacking...but maybe I'll get back to actually providing a full trip report here sometime soon.

Life stuff...busy with work, tennis, and planning out the next trip. I nearly messed up on my planning after a long weekend of enjoying some tie with friends. Sunday was my day to make ADRS for my son's June graduation trip and the only goal was Space220. I woke up around 7am and thankfully realized it...so I made it a priority. Thankfully I lucked out and for the last day of our trip I have a 2:45pm Space 220 reservation.

His other request was Tutto Italia, which I don't think we've been to in many years...and I have that also. I managed to also get Sci Fi Dine In which is a tough one...as well as Chef Mickey's and Yak and Yeti..so for now dining is all set. I'm sure there may be changes but for now at least I'm happy about what we have planned. Also I booked our flights which I was hoping would go down but that isn't looking promising as they keep going up. Crazy.

Then there is the rental car...I had to cave and do a prepaid rental via UCT. It saves me over $200 but I'm not thrilled with the fact that I'll have to go to the indoor counter for it as last time I did that it was a nightmare. We'll see.

Next week may be my chance to get this report started as my oldest is having his wisdom teeth removed, another fun thing for us to navigate as he no longer is covered until my dental insurance. It's been interesting.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

So glad you got the adrs sorted. At least that’s one thing you can tick off your to-do list. Life certainly has a way of keeping us busy but hopefully things will settle so you can tell us all about your trip. Also crossing my fingers for your son thatthe dental work goes easy for him

 

[kittylady1972]

I'm so far behind in updating this TR as promised. Now all I can focus on is the NEXT vacation...or two...coming up. Though I have to admit I'm a bit soured by some of the recent Disney trips, we will still do at least one graduation trip as promised for kid 3 and perhaps a short trip in July as well, where we MIGHT MIGHT do one park day...or two if we are lucky enough to get tickets to Moonlight Magic.

My son's trip is pretty set right now for early June. I finally bought our park passes last week and not a minute too soon. I had seen one of our 6 days had not all parks available for reservations...and thankfully that wasn't a park we had planned for that day. Over the weekend I booked all the remaining park passes...and now I see several days have at least one park if not two that aren't available. So glad we got that resolved.

I've cancelled a few ADRs that were duplicates or that we weren't interested in doing, but I have the rest. We will be having meals at Toledo, Chef Mickey, Tutto Italia, Sci-Fi Dine In, Yak n Yeti and Space 220. We also have ADRs for The Plaza, Oga's, and Trails End but I'm not 100% on those.

I can't believe rental car prices so glad I booked through UT and did their ticket purchase that gave me a reduced rental car rate. While ~$200 for the week isn't the best, it's better than anything I've been able to book so far. It's prepaid and I'm not looking forward to having to stand in the counter line instead of just hitting the parking garage booths and going, but for the savings I'll deal with it I guess. We have nothing pressing to get to that first day.

Now we have to decide how to handle the July trip with some recent low flight prices. It might be worth it for us to just fly instead of driving as we had planned. Not sure though. There are other factors to consider when driving.

I'm looking forward to this next trip and as much as I hate Genie and LL, now that the rumor is that GotG ride will be virtual queue or paid LL, we may just have to splurge for the LL access so we can try it.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Sounds like you have some solid plans in place. Glad you got the special requests from your son booked. You’ll be there in no time now!