First Disney trip for my family! Updated 11/3

[cinderaimee]

Hello all! Thank you for reading this! I am a long-time lurker to the Disboards, but as my trip is fast approaching, I thought I would love to run my plans by all you experts and see if there are any holes I'm missing or suggestions or comments or ANYTHING to add! I have gained so much knowledge and my trip has been shaped by all the great suggestions and trip reports I've read through on here! Thank you all so much!

(I am still learning this board, so please bear with me!)

Who is this new girl?

I am Aimee! I live and work in the Washington, DC area. I am married to a super sweet man (DH). I grew up going to Disneyworld every year or every other year when I was a kid since we had family in Florida. I was there in 2000 for my high school's senior trip and in 2001 when I went on vacation with my best friend - and that was the last time I went to Disney! So much has changed since then.

DH has very limited Disney experience! When he was young and on a vacation with his extended family they went to Disney World, but the only park his aunt bought tickets for was Epcot because she wanted it to be "educational"! DH has only vague memories of the trip, other than it was "boring" (and who can blame him! This was late-80's Epcot and his family had recently emigrated to the United States and he barely spoke English at that point, so a lot was lost on him). He is so excited to go, and has left all the planning up to me.

But these boys are the real stars of the show and this trip is all for them.

Mr. A (DS1) is 4 years old. He loves animals, roller coasters, the Lion Guard and PJ Masks. He cannot wait to meet Ariel.

Baby T (DS2) is 2 and he is a terror, ha! He loves anything with wheels, being outside, running away from me, and food.

Why now?

When I was on maternity leave with DS2, DS1 was 2 years old at the time. He was so fun at that age and I told myself it would be so fun to take him to Disney World, but there was no way I could do it with a newborn, so I set a goal that when DS2 was 2, we would go to Disney. Not only will this be our first trip to Disney, it is also our first vacation as just the four of us! DH and I both work, our weekends are usually really busy with errands, so I am just looking forward to a chance to just spend time with my husband and my boys without worrying about real life!

When?

November 14-19. We are hoping for low crowds and great weather!

Where?

Studio room at Disney's Boardwalk Villas!

(thanks Google for the picture!)

A very dear, Disney-loving, DVC-owning, family friend of ours is letting us use some of her points for the stay. She has done so much for our family that we call her our Fairy Godmother. I offered to rent the points and she refused!

Next, I'm going to post my daily plans. Thank you so much for reading!

 

[babygrl]

Awesome! I love reading PTRs... Maybe I should write one!

 

[cinderaimee]

One thing you should know about me - I'm not really a planner! I've been forced into it this trip, but my usual amusement park MO is to wander around and ride whatever looks fun! I've built some time for that into our plans, so I don't have everything planned to the hour. Also, this trip is for the boys, so if there's something they want to keep riding or don't want to ride or a show they want to stop and watch, that's what we wil do!

Another thing I forgot to mention in my intro thread is my boys are extremely tall and brave for their ages, so we are hoping to ride more rides than other people might be able to with kids this age. DS1 is 46 inches tall and DS2 and 38 inches. They are closer to the average heights of a 6 and 4 year old.

Other things worth mentioning-
-we are relying solely on disney transportation for this trip
-we chose not to purchase a dining plan. We are snackers and the kids aren't great in sit-down restaurants, so rather than big meals (other than the ADR's), I think we will mostly just end up getting a few things to share as we walk around.
-we have single-park tickets
-I am going to bring snacks and breakfast food to eat in the room most mornings while we're getting ready

Day one - arrival day! Monday, Nov. 14 (no parks planned)

-Flight arrives at MCO around 11:30am
-DME to BW, drop off bags, pick up rented double stroller
-Bus to Disney Springs. Visit World of Disney store to let boys pick out autograph books, Lego store, T-rex restaurant (just to look around, not eat) ride the carousel, etc.
-My cousin is bringing my Grandma to meet us at DS for an early dinner (would love suggestions for a restaurant - somewhere not very loud and not too expensive and good for kids? that's asking a lot!) She is not in great health and doesn't travel or even drive, so she's never met my kids and I haven't seen her since 2010!
-Bus back to BW, unpack, pool, etc. Try to get to bed early!

Day two - Magic Kingdom - Tuesday, Nov. 15
(This is a Holiday party day. I went back and forth on this because I think the cost of the party tickets would be lost on the boys, and there's no way they will make it to the end of the night. I am sad we will miss Wishes, but there are enough fireworks the other nights, and we can catch the castle-lighting show before we are kicked out, so that's still something. If the boys are still going strong, we might try to watch the fireworks from Contemporary)

-Bus to MK to watch Welcome Show, then head to Fantasyland
-9:15 Peter Pan FP
-Teacups, carousel, dumbo, etc
-11:15 Buzz Lightyear FP
-Tomorrowland rides, lunch
-2:30 Seven Dwarfs Mine Train FP
-My plan is to get to SDMT right at 2:30 or earlier so we can ride it and then hustle over to the parade route for the 3:00 Festival of Fantasy parade (someone tell me if this is a delusional plan) If we can walk on after rope drop, might skip this FP for the parade.
-Adventureland/Frontierland - try for a 3rd FP for Pirates
-Waffle sandwich at Sleepy Hollow (yes, this deserves it's own bullet, haha)
-6:15 - Frozen castle lighting shebang
-Bus back to BW

Day three - Hollywood Studios - Wednesday, Nov. 16
(I still want to call this place MGM. This is actually the day I'm least excited about!)
-Walk or boat to DHS
-9:30 ADR - Disney Jr. Breakfast at Hollywood & Vine
-10:45 FP - TSM
-12:00 FP - Frozen Sing a long
-1:30 FP - Voyage of the Little Mermaid
We'll hit the Disney Jr., Beauty and the Beast, and Muppet shows at some point in there. I'm not sure what else my boys will be interested here, tbh. ToT and RR are too scary and they're not tall enough. We'll probably head back to the resort to rest and/or swim before going back for Fantasmic

Day four - Epcot - Thursday, Nov. 17
-Walk to Epcot from BW. Hoping to make rope drop and hustle to Futureworld. Our plan is to divide and conquer so I will take DS1 on Soarin first, and then DH will take him on Test Track while we take turns minding DS2. Morning through lunchtime in Furtureworld, and then head around the World Showcase.
-11:00 FP - Spaceship Earth (not because I'm worried about a long line, but I remember the queue is super duper boring)
-12:30 FP - The Seas w/ Nemo
- give children Beverly soda for all the times they've stolen my drinks
-4:05 FP - Frozen Ever After
- Eat School Bread, Blow through my budget buying Japanese candy
Depending on the boys, we might go back to the resort for a break before Illuminations

Day five - Animal Kingdom - Friday, Nov. 18
-I scheduled this later in the trip because I think DS1 will love it so much, he would complain about DHS and Epcot if he saw AK first!
-Bus to MK to monorail to Polynesian for
-9:05 ADR - 'Ohana breakfast with Lilo and Stitch
-Bus from Poly to AK
-11:15 FP - Kilamanjaro Safaris
-Check out Africa - Lion King show, train to Rafiki's
-2:10 FP - DINOSAUR
-Dinoland, drag crying children out of gravel pit
-3:15 FP - Kali River Rapids (these last two FP's depend entirely on if they boys want to do them or not)
-Asia.
-Food - Yak & Yeti's and Flametree BBQ are on our list.
-Whatever Disney has decided it's doing at night at AK? Someone let me know.

Day six - Magic Kingdom - Saturday, Nov. 19
- This is either a genius move or a terrible decision. I chose our flight home for 8:55pm (rationale: the kids are probably going to sleep on the plane no matter what. The other option was 4:30, which means they'd be wide awake when we get home close to bedtime and miserable, and also we'd have to leave the park around noon to get on DME) so we are doing one more day in the parks. The plan is for MK, but if DS1 really wants to go back to AK or Epcot instead, we will do whatever he wants.

- checkout DME registration or whatever the process is for that
- Bus to MK
- 9:10 FP - 7DMT
- 11:10 Lunch ADR - Be Our Guest
- 12:00 FP - Tomorrowland Speedway
- 1:15 FP - Aladdin carpets
- the plans for this day, other than the FP and ADR is whatever the kids want to do again or that we missed the first day!
-Around 5:00 - Bus back to BW to catch DME to MCO (does this sound about right for a 9:00 flight?)
-fall into depression that trip is over and/or relieved to be finally going home (this is on you, kids)

So that's the basic plan! I welcome any suggestions!

Thank you so much for reading!

 

[LadyEllie]

Looks like a fun trip! My son is 14 on our next trip in December, so it has been awhile since I've dealt with preschoolers and toddlers. However, I'm taking my 8 year-old nephew with us on the December trip. One thing I thought would be fun for him, and maybe your four year-old, was the Jedi Training Academy at Hollywood Studios. You have to be 4 - 12 years old to participate, but maybe your younger son would enjoy watching his brother fight Darth Vader! I can't remember if they are into Star Wars by 4.

 

[cinderaimee]

Looks like a fun trip! My son is 14 on our next trip in December, so it has been awhile since I've dealt with preschoolers and toddlers. However, I'm taking my 8 year-old nephew with us on the December trip. One thing I thought would be fun for him, and maybe your four year-old, was the Jedi Training Academy at Hollywood Studios. You have to be 4 - 12 years old to participate, but maybe your younger son would enjoy watching his brother fight Darth Vader! I can't remember if they are into Star Wars by 4.

Thanks for reading and replying! We are not a Star Wars family (eek), so DS1 is not really familiar with it, other than some Happy Meal toys he got kind of recently. Maybe I'll find a video of it to show him and see if he's interested. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[cinderaimee]

Now that is October I can finally say we're going next month!! We just finalized our magic bands after DS1 changed his mind about 20 times about the color.

I've done a lot of shopping for this trip and I am quite proud of this:

Matching shirts for the boys for each day we're in the parks! This was actually a challenge with one boy in "toddler" sizes and the other in "big boy" sizes so I'm really pleased I pulled it off. Can you guess which shirt is for which park??

(EDIT: i don't know why this picture is showing upside down It looked fine on the ipad... )

 

[LadyEllie]

Very cool! You did well. Let me guess....Mickey's for MK, Lion King for AK, Toy Story for HS, and Nemo for Epcot. Cool Mickey is my favorite.

 

[cinderaimee]

Very cool! You did well. Let me guess....Mickey's for MK, Lion King for AK, Toy Story for HS, and Nemo for Epcot. Cool Mickey is my favorite.

You are right! I guess that wasn't so hard

 

[cinderaimee]

A few updates!

1. So I logged into MDE last night and got this message



It looks like they've closed Dinosaur! They replaced my FP with a FP for Everest, which I guess is pretty cool except I think it's too scary for my kids (and the youngest is too short) so I'm considering replacing it with something else but not sure what. Maybe H and I can take turns?

2. Magical Express tags arrived yesterday on one month out from our arrival!

3. I was thinking about the trip at 3:00am last night (as one does) and just bummed we're going to miss seeing Wishes. But nearly $300 for party tickets is just not too much. Then I remembered, I initially was planning on 4 day tickets, and found out the difference between 4 and 5 day tickets was around $60. How much would it be to get a 6 day ticket instead? Turns out, it's $45.

So now I'm considering adding on another day and heading to MK arrival night to catch Wishes! I'm still thinking about it because it's not very practical as we have an early morning (wake up around 4:30 to get to the airport!) and it might be better to just get to bed early and start day 2 fresh.

 

[LadyEllie]

I read a post somewhere else where the same thing happened for a AK fastpass for a different ride. Someone else replied there was a glitch in the system and this was happening to many people. You may try changing the FP later.

 

[cinderelly828]

Late to the party, but I'm following along (and catching up! )

 

[cinderaimee]

I read a post somewhere else where the same thing happened for a AK fastpass for a different ride. Someone else replied there was a glitch in the system and this was happening to many people. You may try changing the FP later.

It looks like Dinosaur is actually closed! That would be awesome if it was just a glitch.

Late to the party, but I'm following along (and catching up! )

Thanks for reading along!

 

[cinderaimee]

Hello pretties!

 

[cinderaimee]

Update! After trying every day, multiple times a day, for different dates and different times, I finally had a reservation pop up this morning!

What is this elusive reservation, you ask??



Sure, maybe not the best idea to get the kids all sugared up on ice cream at bedtime the first night we're there, but, what the hey. We can walk back to the boardwalk to burn off the sugar. I'm going to keep looking for a slightly earlier reservation, but I'm happy with this one!