From East Coast to West Coast in Under 3 Months WDW/DL PTR Updated 1/30!

[Pluto0809]

Hello everyone and welcome to my PTR. My name is Ariana and I live outside of Atlanta GA with my husband Jim and our four dogs. Here we are hanging out with Pooh and Tigger last January.



Jim’s actually not involved in either trip this report will cover but we are planning another trip back to WDW in January 2018 where I will (hopefully) be running in the 5K and 10K during marathon weekend.

Since I think my doggies are adorable, I’m going to share some pictures with you. First up is Eddie. He’s a Miniature Schnauzer and is 15. I have an awful time getting pictures of him because he is solid black and is missing both of his eyes. He lost them a few years ago to glaucoma. Lately I’ve been calling him my “Timex Dog” because he “takes a licking and keeps on ticking”. He has been through so much in his life.



Next up is Alex, he’s a Schnauzer mix and is 10 years old.



Sierra is also a Schnauzer and is 6 years old. She is 100% Jim’s baby.



Last but not least is Remy. He’s a Yorkie and is 6 years old.



So, let’s move on and focus on the two trips I have coming up. First up is a Mother/Daughter trip to Walt Disney World. Many of you may remember Mom since we have done several Mother/Daughter trips in the past. Here we are on the last one which was October 2014.



This trip was not supposed to happen at all. We booked it back in April when free dining came out. We were only going to go if the Disneyland trip fell through. We were waiting on my Brother and SIL to decide if we were actually going to DL. When we finally did make the decision to go to DL, Mom and I could not bring ourselves to cancel this trip. We decided to keep it and make it as inexpensive as possible. I will talk about this trip first as it’s coming up fast at the end of November plus I’ve got it almost completely planned out.

The second trip will include me, my Mom, my brother John and sister-in-law Jocelyn. We will be headed to Disneyland at the beginning of February. I’m super excited about this trip but also a bit overwhelmed because none of us have been to DL so I’m a bit lost with the planning. So far the only thing I’ve done is research and book our hotel and flights. I’m hoping that some DL veterans will be able to help me out! Here’s a picture of the four of us the last time we were at Disney World in February 2014.



Up Next: Disney World Trip Details

 

[Pluto0809]

Table of Contents

East Coast
Disney World Trip Details
Day 1 WDW
Day 2 WDW
Magic Bands! Changes! Outfits!
Day 3 WDW
Day 4 WDW
Day 5 WDW
Day 6 WDW
Day 7 WDW
Day 8 WDW - Last Day

West Coast
Disneyland/California Schedule
Airfare Drama, Hotels and Day 1 DL
Day 2 California Adventure
Day 3 Disneyland
Day 4 The Walt Tour
Day 5 - 7 and Outfits

 

[Pluto0809]

Disney World Trip Details

Like I said in the previous post, this trip was not supposed to happen. But when free dining came out last April, Mom and I began to talk about what would happen if John and Jocelyn decided to delay Disneyland another year. We were supposed to go to DL several years ago but my brother lost his job and was out of work for a while. We weren’t sure if they were at a good place financially yet to afford the trip.

Mom and I didn’t want to miss out on a Disney trip if they decided to wait so we booked the week after Thanksgiving, Saturday November 26th through Saturday, December 3rd. And of course when DL did go through, we didn’t cancel. We booked Pop Century and upgraded to Regular Dining because we really love our sit down meals. We haven't stayed at Pop Century since 2010 and for some reason I have lots of pictures of the different sections but none of the front of the resort. I'll have to make sure and remedy that this trip! We really enjoyed our last stay here and are excited to go back again.




A few months after we booked and already had our ADRs, we found out that my cousin and her family would be there the same week! We won’t be overlapping on all of our days but we will be doing some stuff with them. So joining us on some days will be Morgan, her husband Steve and their three kids, Jacob, Jordyn and Kennedy.



Her parents, Esther and Jim (Esther is my Mom’s sister) will be along for the trip. Here they are with little Jordyn.



Finally, Morgan’s little sister, Sydney, will be flying down for just a few days. She couldn’t get the whole week off of work. Here she is with her husband, Kevin. He was not able to join in on the trip.



There are staying at All Star Sports and chose not to upgrade to Regular Dining so they are only doing one or two sit down meals. Their dates are Sunday, November 7th through Saturday, December 3rd. I think Sydney comes in Monday or Tuesday and leaves on Friday.

Oh and the fun part is that the kids don’t know about the trip at all. Their flight out on Sunday is ridiculously early at 5:30 am so Morgan plans to wake the kids up in the middle of the night with the news they are headed to Disney. She expects Jacob and Jordyn to be bouncing off the walls with excitement. Kennedy on the other hand will probably yell at Morgan to go away and let her sleep. I told Morgan she better video it!

Up Next: Day 1 WDW

 

[rteetz]

Yay! So glad you're back!

 

[DMGeurts]

Here! Can't wait to read this!

D~

 

[tatar63]

Looking forward to both your trips!
Monica

 

[ljcrochet]

What fun. Can't wait to read about your plans

 

[missangelalexis]

Glad to see you back! So exciting to have 2 trips coming up! I don't blame you at all for not cancelling the WDW one LOL So awesome that a lot of your family will be there at the same time- what a great trip this will be! Can't wait to hear more

 

[missjackiemcg]

You're making my day!!!! I seriously was JUST thinking "When is she going to start a PTR for DL!!" And I totally forgot about your Mother-Daughter trip this Fall. Can't wait to read more

 

[Chicago Mo]

BAM! saving my spot.
Your entire family is super adorable! I cannot wait to hear how this all goes down with that many people!! I need to take notes.

as always i LOVE your puppies! so cute!

happy you have another awesome PTR going! YAY!

 

[rndmr2]

Looking forward to your upcoming trips!

 

[disneychic2]

Hello! I'm so glad you let me know about this! LOVE you puppies as always!! I haven't been to DL since I was 15, so I'm no help there. I'm sure you'll get some tips from others though.

We stayed at Pop and upgraded to regular dining too. Can't give up those table service meals! Your 1st trip is so close!!! I don't remember, have you been there at Christmas before? I just told Dan we need to plan a trip during the Christmas season...those decorations are so amazing!

Can't wait to read more!

 

[Pluto0809]

Yay! So glad you're back!

Thanks! I'm glad to be back also. I need to get caught up on your PTR so I can get some tips for planning my January 2018 Marathon Weekend trip. I'm "running" my first 5K on October 28th. I put running in quotes because as of right now I'm only running about 1/3 of the time and walking the rest. But at least I'm running some and I know I will continue to improve.

Here! Can't wait to read this!

D~

Hi D! Looks like you are having a fabulous time at WDW right now!

Looking forward to both your trips!
Monica

Hi Monica! I'm looking forward to them also.

What fun. Can't wait to read about your plans

Thanks for joining in!

Glad to see you back! So exciting to have 2 trips coming up! I don't blame you at all for not cancelling the WDW one LOL So awesome that a lot of your family will be there at the same time- what a great trip this will be! Can't wait to hear more

Hi Alexis! I need to finish reading your DL trip so I can get some more tips for mine.

You're making my day!!!! I seriously was JUST thinking "When is she going to start a PTR for DL!!" And I totally forgot about your Mother-Daughter trip this Fall. Can't wait to read more

Hi Jackie! So sorry I took so long starting this. I really planned on doing it sooner but things got really rough at work for a while. Nothing I couldn't handle but I would have much rather been here!

BAM! saving my spot.
Your entire family is super adorable! I cannot wait to hear how this all goes down with that many people!! I need to take notes.

as always i LOVE your puppies! so cute!

happy you have another awesome PTR going! YAY!

Hi Mo! Well we won't be spending loads of time with them. Probably just a ride or two here and there. We are only overlapping parks on three days and mostly have different FPs for those days.

Looking forward to your upcoming trips!

Thanks and

Hello! I'm so glad you let me know about this! LOVE you puppies as always!! I haven't been to DL since I was 15, so I'm no help there. I'm sure you'll get some tips from others though.

We stayed at Pop and upgraded to regular dining too. Can't give up those table service meals! Your 1st trip is so close!!! I don't remember, have you been there at Christmas before? I just told Dan we need to plan a trip during the Christmas season...those decorations are so amazing!

Can't wait to read more!

Lois, hi! I'm glad to see you here. This will actually be my third time going the week after Thanksgiving. I really love Christmas time at WDW!

 

[Pluto0809]

Day 1 WDW

Whoo hoo! It’s Disney day. Well not quite yet, but it will be in 40 days!

Let’s start off this post by talking about airfare and flights.

This will be the third time since 2012 that I have gone to Disney the week after Thanksgiving. During the previous two trips I had no problem finding reasonably priced airfare. Not this time! Wow, it was so much more expensive that I thought it would be. I wasn’t too worried about myself but Mom is retired and on a pretty fixed budget. So I stalked the Southwest web site and finally the rates dropped for me. I still paid a little more than what I paid for airfare for the Disneyland trip but it was better than the alternative. I’m glad I did grab them then because they went back up and never came back down.

I continued to stalk every day for Mom but I kind of limited my options by buying my tickets. Finally they dropped a little and I grabbed hers and ended up giving them to her for her birthday in September since they were still higher than I wanted her to pay. She’s hard to shop for any ways so this gave me an easy gift for her.

I always try to get Mom on a direct flight because having a layover makes her nervous. She had never flown by herself prior to my Dad’s passing in 2007 and she’s still getting used to doing it on her own. She’s much better than she used to be but I still try to accommodate her as much as possible.

There were two flight options for her that would work with mine. One with a layover and one direct. Unfortunately the direct flight never came down in price. But the good news is her first flight comes to Atlanta and then we will fly the last leg together.


So, she leaves from up north on a 7:05 am flight. I felt a little bad making it so early for her but we will just have to cut our day short so we can get to bed early that night. Her flight lands in Atlanta at 9:20 am and I plan on being at the gate to meet her. She is a little worried about making the connection especially since weather could be a factor. But I promised her I would not get on the Atlanta flight without her. I’m not sure what I would have to do but I’ll figure it out if necessary. I sure do hope everything goes smoothly and I won’t have to figure anything out!

Our flight out of Atlanta is at 10:10 am and we land in Orlando at 11:40 pm.

We have gone back and forth discussing what we want to do for lunch. If we are hungry we may grab something at the airport. More likely though we will be anxious to get to our resort and will head straight to DME.



Hopefully it won’t take too long and we will be seeing this site before we know it.



When we reach Pop, we will either head to our room if it’s ready (I’ve requested the 70s section and near transportation) or drop off our carry-ons and head to the buses. Well, we may need to eat something first if we didn’t do so at the airport or we may try to wait till we get to our first park to grab a bite.

And what will that first park be? Magic Kingdom of course!



I expect the park to be packed since it’s a Saturday and still Thanksgiving weekend. But we have 3 FP+ to use and I also plan to do some shopping on this day.

Our first FP+ for the trip is for the Jungle Cruise. Or actually I’m hoping it will be the Jingle Cruise again as Mom hasn’t seen it with the Christmas layover. Our time is from 2:20 – 3:20 pm and I expect to use it towards the end of the time period.



Next up is Pirates from 3:35 – 4:35 pm.



Depending on what time we make it to the Jungle Cruise, we may have time before Pirates to hit up the Tiki Room. But if not before, we may do so after in order to take up time before our final FP+ for the Haunted Mansion from 4:35 – 5:35 pm.



I originally had BTMR as our third FP+ but I found out that HM would be down for renovations for most of our trip. I felt it would be better to make sure we rode it on the first day.

After HM we will probably start thinking about dinner. I will let Mom pick so it will be either Columbia Harbor House or Casey’s. We love both of those counter services equally and this will be the only day we can hit up either one.

After dinner, I think we will start to head out of the park and back to our room. We might do some shopping (we love to shop!) on our way down Main Street. Mom will be tired at this point and we will want to get unpacked and settled. I want to get us to bed early so we start off our first full day refreshed and ready to go.

Up Next: WDW Day 2

 

[missangelalexis]

It's great that you and your mom will get to fly together on the second leg of her flights!

Sounds like a great arrival day at MK! Smart idea to ride HM before it closes for refurb!

 

[rteetz]

Looks like a great arrival day! While you couldn't get the flights for your mom that you exactly wanted it looks like you made it work.

FP's look great!

 

[disneychic2]

Your trip reports are always so fun to read, and I especially love the photos!

So glad you got the airfare all straightened out! I'm sure being able to meet you for the second leg will ease your Mom's fears. I know what you mean about stalking the airlines. That's what I always do when planning a trip.

Your first day sounds great! When we went in September, we received a text message that our room was ready and the room number before we even arrived, so we could just go straight to our room and not even go to the check in area! That was such a time saver! As far as what Dan and I do when we have a similar arrival time is pack along a Cliff bar or something similar in case we're so anxious to get to the park we don't want to bother taking time for lunch. Which is usually all the time! haha

I think it's very smart to do the HM on your first day. You don't want to miss that! And Harbour House or Casey's...you can't go wrong with either of them! I love how thoughtful you are about your Mom and her stamina. I'll bet she'll perk up for the shopping though...don't we all?

Wonder what day two will bring???

 

[lovegrumpy]

Your going to love Disneyland!!! That was my first park being married and taking my boys.

 

[missjackiemcg]

I love that you will able to fly with your Mom the last part of the way--no waiting once you're in Orlando, you can jump right on the Fake-o-Rail!! YAY!!

I just smiled thinking about how you start the morning in a boring airport and are FPing rides by late afternoon--it's just something only we DIS-folks understand. Get to the magic ASAP!!!!

Can't wait to hear what else you've got in store

 

[Chicago Mo]

we do what we can for our Mom's!!!
My mom is impossible to buy for too. sadly she will never get on a plane!

I love the first day plans and how you will be able to meet her at the airport and fly together! YAY!
No airport food! your about to go to Disney! must eat Disney food! I do hope the crowds wont be too much of an issue. I cannot believe HM will be CLOSED! NO NO NO NO! Thankfully you WILL be able to ride it at least once!

Have a great day!