What A Bummer!
Friends, I can NOT believe Disney World still isn’t selling new APs. I truly thought it would happen after Easter, yet here we are. “Disappointed” doesn’t even begin to cover how we’re feeling about this. It stinks! After much discussion, Hubby and I have decided to buy regular tickets so that we can make August park reservations. Disney is ramping up a ton of capacity this summer, especially with the return of the international program. If, by some miracle, APs are back by September 3rd, we’ll upgrade on site and keep the dream alive. If not, then the title of this PTR becomes accurate in a way I had never intended.
November Plans
Without APs, we’re not sure what we’re doing about the November surprise trip. At first, we were full steam ahead on keeping the trip as is, APs or not. The cost that we had allocated to a year of APs could just go to August and November tickets and what better way to celebrate your birthday than in Magic Kingdom?? After really sitting on the idea, I don’t think that’s the right call. Taken on its own, the November trip would be a huge second expense considering we will have had a big trip just two and a half months prior. It’s one thing when you’re allocating AP cost across multiple different types of trips over the year, but spending all of that for just these two trips didn’t seem like a good return on value. I started thinking about what other, wonderful birthday trip we could take with those funds, but Disney just wouldn’t get out of my head.
It turns out there’s a Disney Wish cruise out of Canaveral that overlaps our planned dates perfectly. We’d cruise for 4 nights, disembark the day before their birthday, transfer to Disney World, and still do a Magic Kingdom birthday celebration before flying home the next day. It’s not cheap, not by a long shot, but neither was staying at Poly for a week and having to buy another full set of tickets. Final payment on the cruise isn’t due until a week after we return this summer, so we have until then to see if APs do come back.
If there are no APs by September 3rd, we have a few days to think about our summer trip and decide whether the current version of WDW (Genie + and all) is worth the November trip or if we pivot to the cruise instead. Our flights would be the same either way, so I’ll just be holding a handful of different, refundable reservations until we lock down November. I’m still super annoyed that, in either version, an expense that should have been our entertainment cost for several trips over twelves months ends up going to just these two. Yes, we would have had to book flights and hotels each time throughout 2022-23. But, we still would have absolutely been able to stretch the Disney budget into many more days with APs. Grrrrrrr.
August Plans
On the August front, we are thrilled to have
MNSSHP coming back! It was a major highlight in 2019 and the girls are excited for a repeat. Of course, that’s causing us to shuffle around park days and it means a third night that the girls will be up extra late.
Three parties are happening during our visit. The first is on our first full day in Florida. Since the excitement will wake the kids before dawn, this feels like a bad night to try the party. I want downtime during the day leading into the party and they won’t be having that on the first day. The third option is the second to last full day of our trip, meaning they would be exhausted on their last park day. This also feels like a terrible call because they’re going to want to pack it all in on the final day and they’ll be too tired to do it. Weepy, vacation-is-ending melt downs are virtually guaranteed with that schedule. That leaves us with a Tuesday in the middle of our trip. Because deluxe evening hours run Monday and Wednesday, the Tuesday party forces all three of our late nights back-to-back. At first, I was not thrilled with that idea, but it’s growing on me. Hopefully, with progressive late nights, they’ll then sleep in later during the day to rest up for the next evening’s adventure. Or, you know, that’s the real pipe dream of this PTR!
Our updated schedule with ADR goals is as follows:
8/25- Flight arrives at 2:30pm, ADR Beaches & Cream dinner
8/26- MK rope drop, pool/water park during peak heat, ADR Garden Grill 6:00pm EP evening to see Harmonious
8/27- AK rope drop, ADR Yak and Yeti 12:30, pool/water park, HS evening to see Fantasmic(????), ADR Oga’s 6:30pm
8/28- EP rope drop, ADR Space 220 lounge 12:30 (split 2/4), pool/water park, AK evening
8/29- HS rope drop, pool/water park, ADR Biergarten 6:00 (dancing back?), EP deluxe evening hours
8/30- ADR Trattoria 9:30am (only to hold in case Bon Voyage breakfast returns), relaxed pool day, ADR Steakhouse 71 2:00pm, MNSSHP
8/31- ADR Toppolino 10:00am, pool/water park, ADR Skipper Canteen (apps to share, not expecting to be very hungry), Enchantment and MK deluxe evening hours
9/1- lots of sleep, probably (the prior 3 nights were all late), HS evening, ADR Sci Fi 7:00, Star Wars fireworks?
9/2- I’m trying to talk everyone into a quadruple park day. MK RD, ADR Plaza 12:00, monorail to EP, skyliner to HS, bus to AK. The kids are enthusiastic now but don’t know their limits; Hubby is more skeptical (aka realistic) about this one
9/3- EP RD, MK evening, no ADRs to leave lots of flexibility depending on how the trip has gone
9/4- Flight departs 10:00am, so just breakfast in the room and then we’ll head out
This is our first trip with hoppers, so who knows how much we’ll stick to evening schedules. I want to have at least a rough sketch laid out so that I know we’ll get enough total time in each park. We’re also not necessarily planning on using G+ a ton. With so many days, we will likely be at the pool or Typhoon Lagoon when lines get long and instead utilize rope drop, evening hours, and the deluxe extra late hours. I’m sure we’ll do a few G+ days, but I don’t want to start with $75 a park day loaded into the vacation budget; it’s just too much!
Also, what the heck is going on with Hollywood Studio evening entertainment? I have two nights here booked just in case because we all know Disney tends to announce things returning on short notice. But, they haven’t gotten Star Wars fireworks OR Fantasmic running yet? Come on, folks! It’s time.
I have a couple of wishful thinking ADRs, too. Trattoria breakfast was a particular request from the girls, so I’m making it on the off chance characters return. Also, I don’t think Biergarten is back to its full glory just yet. I don’t know if we’ll keep that ADR if the kids can’t go down and dance to the music: they are enthusiastic participants and it would be a big part of why we went.
Otherwise, we’re awaiting ADR day, hoping Southwest doesn’t change our flights, and crossing our fingers that some of our favorite things get announced for late summer returns to Disney World.
Big Picture
In case you hadn’t noticed it yet, I’m really not doing well at accepting that our grand plans for 2022 and 2023 travel have, for all intents and purposes, unraveled. I’m researching
DCL for November, maybe eyeballing Grand Cayman for Easter or Hawaii for summer 2023, but everything is half-hearted. We have two companion passes through 2023 and lots of SW points, so we’re definitely taking fun vacations somewhere! But, until they put the final nail in our AP coffin, everything feels too up in the air to get excited.
Speaking of not accepting things, the kids brought Covid home the Thursday before a concert we’d been waiting two years to see. We were going to see the band in January of 2020 but the show was cancelled. Then, they announced summer 2020 tour dates, but we all know how that went! Meanwhile, the kids listened to all the albums on repeat and we had all really built up finally getting to see them in person. We even sprung for the VIP meet and greet experience. After sitting on the floor crying right along with the girls, I decided we weren’t going to let them miss this one. The pandemic has taken so many experiences and I refused to let this fall into that bucket.
After comparing tour dates with a very busy year end schedule (dance recital, piano recital, Girl Scouts outings, etc), we got our first chance to use those SW passes and flew to Nashville for Memorial Day weekend. It was insane timing, totally last minute, and something I never would have considered in the beforetimes. I guess having your kids come home from Kindergarten one day and just not go back changes your priorities.