Thanksgiving with Mickey again...a November 2016 TRIP REPORT! (DONE)

[kittylady1972]

ONE. MORE. DAY.

Tomorrow I'll be checking out the DVC site and looking at either moving our current Thanksgiving reservations or putting some holdlists out to hopefully move us to other rooms.

I thought about walking the reservation, but because I'd have to book a Friday and Saturday night to do that...it would take away too many points.

FINGERS CROSSED!!!

 

[ariane37]

ONE. MORE. DAY.

Tomorrow I'll be checking out the DVC site and looking at either moving our current Thanksgiving reservations or putting some holdlists out to hopefully move us to other rooms.

I thought about walking the reservation, but because I'd have to book a Friday and Saturday night to do that...it would take away too many points.

FINGERS CROSSED!!!

Good luck tomorrow That'll be us on Saturday, working with our guy to see what's still available for our last couple nights. I hope it all works out for you! I'll be anxiously waiting for your update

 

[cyndiloveswalt]

Hello! Reading your report as we are going to be in Disney for Thanksgiving as well. This has also been our family tradition for many years but this will most likely be the last for a while as my DS17 will be in college next Thanksgiving (yikes) and will surely want to come home then instead.
We are also DVC owners at SSR. I had decided I wanted to switch to Poly for this year and as we are arriving on Saturday the 19th I was able to change our reservation today! I wanted to pass on to you that I watched for over a week each morning how things were booking up and everyday by about 8:05 the first day of the week is booked up and if you can't book the first day you can't book the week! Not sure if when you book 3 rooms you have to do them each seperatley or if you can book all at once. But I would suggest you start booking at exactly 8:00 and if you have to book the 3 individually try and get someone else on another computer booking at the same time. And hopefully if it's just the first night not available and you wait list it will come thru. Sorry to blather on, not even sure if it makes sense. Good luck and maybe we'll see you at the Poly!

 

[kittylady1972]

Hello! Reading your report as we are going to be in Disney for Thanksgiving as well. This has also been our family tradition for many years but this will most likely be the last for a while as my DS17 will be in college next Thanksgiving (yikes) and will surely want to come home then instead.
We are also DVC owners at SSR. I had decided I wanted to switch to Poly for this year and as we are arriving on Saturday the 19th I was able to change our reservation today! I wanted to pass on to you that I watched for over a week each morning how things were booking up and everyday by about 8:05 the first day of the week is booked up and if you can't book the first day you can't book the week! Not sure if when you book 3 rooms you have to do them each seperatley or if you can book all at once. But I would suggest you start booking at exactly 8:00 and if you have to book the 3 individually try and get someone else on another computer booking at the same time. And hopefully if it's just the first night not available and you wait list it will come thru. Sorry to blather on, not even sure if it makes sense. Good luck and maybe we'll see you at the Poly!

How great! So sad you'll have to take a break from it but completely understand.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately bad timing on my part and I have to be in a class at 8am this morning so I'm not sure when I'll get to check the system. I looked this morning and already see that Wed and Thurs of Thanksgiving week are booked for BLT and Poly so I'll end up waitlisting no matter what most likely. I do have to waitlist each room, so I have two total. The tricky part is that each view has a different waitlist so I would have to have each on of those and you can only have 3 total. For example, BLT has a 2BR Standard View, 2 BR LakeView, 2BR Lockoff Standard View, 2BR Lockoff Lakeview...that is 4 different lists. I would probably select two of them and hope for the best, and keep checking randomly between now and when we leave. For the Studio, I'll probably just waitlist one view (I believe there are more LV than any other) for that. I would just hate if I get one and not the other, meaning our party will be in two different resorts. So hoping for the best! Glad you got what you wanted. You will LOVE the Poly!!!

 

[ariane37]

So what did you end up waitlisting? I'm bummed nothing is available at the Poly for Thanksgiving and the day before since we were hoping for a studio there those 2 days plus that Fri. and can't book until Saturday Not that I had high hopes of getting it, but hearing it won't be possible wasn't fun lol.

I didn't realize until yesterday that VGF have the murphy bed, so now that's on my radar! But I'm sure our chances of a studio being available there come Sat. are slim to none, too! Probably end up at OKW........

 

[kittylady1972]

THE UPDATE:

Sorry I tried to get an update done yesterday, but got interrupted by real work (horror!) So here is the bad news...

NOTHING available in studios or 2BR for the entire week of Thanksgiving. Bay Lake Tower had some sporadic dates available for the week, but not the whole week. My initial thought (to save points) was to waitlist a studio and a 2BR Standard View at BLT. The problem is, the inventory of those is so much more limited than the Lake View rooms. So even though it would be more points for a Lake View room, I think the chances of getting one are better. And so, we still have a studio booked at SSR with a waitlist for a studio lakeview at BLT, and a 2BR at SSR with a waitlist for a 2BR Lakeview at BLT as well.

I figure I'll randomly check from time to time on studios, 1BR and 2BR units at other resorts just to see what's out there. As of a little while ago, I can tell you this: You can get a Studio Savannah View at AK - Kidani Village for the week of Thanksgiving EXCEPT Thursday...total for the while week (if you waitlist that one night) would be 86 points.

OKW does have a 1BR available for the entire week of Thanksgiving right now...for 132 points and of course I think SSR has availability for all rooms, all dates.

Wilderness Lodge has a 1BR available for Tue/Wed/Thur of Thanksgiving right now...but not Sun and Mon.

Honestly I think it will be nice staying at SSR due to the proximity of the NEW Disney Springs area. We haven't been there at all since they started the whole new project there so we would be able to make a visit there easily from SSR.

Bottom line is that I will be okay staying at SSR, but I'll still keep looking for other places.

 

[kittylady1972]

A quick post here to announce some GREAT news...ONE of my TWO waitlist requests has already been fulfilled!
The studio room that I booked for my parents has been moved from Saratoga Springs to Bay Lake Tower! YAY!!

I'm very excited that they will get to stay there! It's kinda funny because I generally talk to my mom on the phone once a week (they live in NC and we live in MD, so we don't see them very often) and usually on Sunday night my mom calls my brother and myself to check in with us.

She called last night to tell me they had recently received something in the mail, and it was the package from Disney announcing their upcoming vacation. She wanted to know if there was anything they needed to do, and I told her I'd take care of everything. I know they don't want to bother with having their own MDE account and dealing with reservations, so I've already linked them all to ours. Then she said "we don't have to get these BRACELETS do we?" to which I responded you ABSOLUTELY DO need those "bracelets" because they will be your room keys, your park tickets and your FastPass reservations. I told her I would go ahead and select the colors online for them and asked which color they wanted me to order. So we've got that straight. Things have changed a LOT since they last visited WDW with us, which I think was November 2007! I'm pretty sure that was the last visit for them so this should be interesting as there will be plenty of new stuff for them there. My mom is not a big ride person at all but she did enjoy Soarin'...so looking forward to the new version of that one!

Anyway I'll continue to do my obsessive checking of the DVC site for available rooms in case I find something else for our 2BR, or I can even at this point try to book two other studio rooms and then waitlist each of those...maybe even to the Polynesian. I don't know...probably not worth all those changes.

Still exciting news and one down and one to go!!!

 

[ariane37]

That's great that your parents get to try BLT! I do hope your 2BR waitlist comes through there, too!
We had zero luck on Sat. booking the last 3 nights of our stay, which I kind of knew ahead of time after I saw your post on Friday. NO studios available for 11/23-11/26 except SSR, and DH just doesn't want to stay there We did enjoy our stay there back in 2011 but he's not up to it again now. So anyway, we'll be at BCV the 19th-23rd and as of now, at CSR the 23rd-26th but we've waitlisted BCV for those nights. Crossing fingers it comes through but I'm not too hopeful.

It will sort of stink going from deluxe to mod especially since the boys will be going from their own sleeping space to sharing a bed, but we've stayed at CSR before and liked it a lot so at least that's a plus.

Our ADR days aren't too far off! Do you have yours all planned out? I should probably go back and reread your earlier posts to see if you mentioned it lol...........

 

[kittylady1972]

That's great that your parents get to try BLT! I do hope your 2BR waitlist comes through there, too!
We had zero luck on Sat. booking the last 3 nights of our stay, which I kind of knew ahead of time after I saw your post on Friday. NO studios available for 11/23-11/26 except SSR, and DH just doesn't want to stay there We did enjoy our stay there back in 2011 but he's not up to it again now. So anyway, we'll be at BCV the 19th-23rd and as of now, at CSR the 23rd-26th but we've waitlisted BCV for those nights. Crossing fingers it comes through but I'm not too hopeful.

It will sort of stink going from deluxe to mod especially since the boys will be going from their own sleeping space to sharing a bed, but we've stayed at CSR before and liked it a lot so at least that's a plus.

Our ADR days aren't too far off! Do you have yours all planned out? I should probably go back and reread your earlier posts to see if you mentioned it lol...........

Yes I am very excited that my parents will get the chance to stay at BLT as well. Hopefully all of us will be there with them. FINGERS CROSSED!

Sorry you didn't get your studio at BCV but here's hoping the waitlist comes through for you as well. My only concern about our stay at SSR is that bus route. It can be confusing (or at least it was to me) regarding which stop to get off in order to be close to your room. Did I share that story here? Short version: I once got off the bus in the middle of the night with 3 very tired children at the wrong stop after missing our stop. I had to carry/walk with them for what seemed like it was going to be quite a distance to get back to our room. Once we started walking, it honestly wasn't that bad but this was also very early in our vacation where our feet were still okay!

CSR is one of the few resorts on property where we have not stayed, though I have booked it before. I would like to try it someday, as well as maybe Caribbean Beach.

As for my ADRs...nope not really planned yet. The only one for sure that I am determined to get is our dinner on Thanksgiving Day which I think will be at Boma. Beyond that, I want to do at least one character meal since we have the little boys with us. Chef Mickey is our tradition, so we will most likely book that. We might book another one as well...not sure yet. Oh and I also think for the dinosaur theme we may book the T-REX Cafe in Disney Springs. I have yet to do the character meal at Tusker House, though I've heard great things so that might also be on our list. We will see how I fit these into our schedule.

And now, off to check the current DVC room status to see what's out there!

 

[kittylady1972]

ROUGH ROUGH PLAN:

Ok so I took the current Nov 2016 operating hours that were recently posted online (knowing they will most likely be extended as they have in the past) and I added in the EMH days, which were not what I though they would be, to my plan. It made me rethink things a bit in terms of parks and days.

So I have a spreadsheet I use:

I have the hours listed, the recommended parks for the days, a rough plan for that day, and then I try to break down the day. Our arrival day is still up in the air, but I'm really hoping we do most of our travel on Saturday at the latest. We could arrive late Saturday night, just get a nearby hotel off property, and then have all day Sunday to enjoy the parks.

So the days are cut off here...but basically this is Fri-Sat of Thanksgiving week.

Did you take note of my aggressive Sunday plan? I'd love to try to do 4 parks in day that day. We attempted it Thanksgiving week of 2014 but it didn't work out. I think we got 3 out of 4, but we also had to travel it with 4 other people, one of which was in a scooter. That didn't help our cause. This time it would just be the five of us most likely. Of course, it means we would have to get 3 of those parks done before dinnertime, as I'm expecting the rest of the family will arrive close to dinner on Sunday. Hopefully we will all be staying at BLT but that remains to be seen. Still not availability all week for ANY 2BR units as of this morning.

Monday: I'm thinking we start off with breakfast at Chef Mickey's to get the boys into the spirit of the place and see how they do with the characters. They will be 4 and 2 at the time but I don't see them enough to know their personalities that well. Of course, despite MK being least recommended that day, I think we MUST start off there and stay as long as we can, with a chance that we can hop over to EPCOT for the afternoon/evening. I'm debating doing a dinner at some sitdown at EPCOT, or maybe booking a late reservation at Rose and Crown to watch Illuminations on the water. That's a tough one to snag though.

Tuesday: We'll probably return to MK to do more stuff there since it's most recommended. I'm thinking we take a break by dinnertime and head to T-Rex downtown for dinner. Evening might be the time to try Hollywood Studios, though I'm really not seeing much of a draw there for the little ones. I can see Toy Story Mania, maybe Little Mermaid and maybe the Playhouse Disney show for them. My kids will want to do the thrill rides like Tower and RnRC though, so if the littles need a break we can trudge on without them there.

Wednesday: Seems like a good day to try to move to Animal Kingdom. It is third recommended behind Epcot and Studios though. I'm thinking about trying for a late breakfast, more like brunch, at Tusker House this day. We'll see, as I haven't managed to keep a Tusker House reservation yet...and I've made one probably 3 times in the last few years. Once we have our fill of AK I'm thinking we move over to EPCOT. I know my mom would like to do Soarin' and the boys might like that too, or at least the oldest one. I think they'll enjoy Nemo and Imagination as well, and while they aren't Frozen fanatics I'm sure we'll have to try the new Frozen ride.

Thursday: I know it sounds crazy, but I love the MK on Thanksgiving morning. I know the crowds will arrive by afternoon, so this is simply an early morning visit if we can get out early. Alternatively since EPCOT has EMH morning, maybe we do that instead and get in Soarin' and the other rides during that time. I have Studios listed this day as well, and if we are in EPCOT we can easily boat over there too if we want to do so, but I just don't see us spending much time there. Thanksgiving dinner is planned for Boma, since we did enjoy it back in 2014. After that, I think maybe we'll try to catch some of the evening entertainment at Animal Kingdom!!

Friday: I'm just not sure what will happen this day. Option one is we get up early and make it a LONG travel day for us, the usual plan. While the rest of the family has a 9 hour drive or so home, we have about 14 hours. Option two is that we spend some more time at the park of our choice, stay there as late as we want (maybe dinnertime) and then start our drive home late that day. We drive as far as we want do drive, then get a hotel, and finish the drive the next day, thus breaking it up a bit for us. I sorta prefer this plan but we'll see if my DH agrees with this one.

So that's it for now...but as always this is subject to change. Part of me does NOT want to shell out the money for 5 adults for TWO character meals. That might be too much but we'll see. I'm also considering doing Crystal Palace, either as a 2nd character meal or instead of Tusker House, just because it's been a while since we've eaten there but again...5 adults to pay for there! I also love Liberty Tree Tavern at MK and might need to add that one day as a lunch option (preferred over dinner). We'll see what shakes out as we get a little closer to my ADR deadline!

 

[ariane37]

Oh man, I totally need to get my butt in gear and figure out not only my ADR's but park days, too! Nice spreadsheet; I'm not that modern lol. I still do everything with pencil and paper

Did you take note of my aggressive Sunday plan? I'd love to try to do 4 parks in day that day

DH and I did 4 parks in one day in January, it was cool! Of course 1. it was only the 2 of us, 2. it wasn't as crowded as Thanksgiving week, and 3. we didn't do a thrill ride/headliner in AK or Epcot.

I think we MUST start off there and stay as long as we can, with a chance that we can hop over to EPCOT for the afternoon/evening. I'm debating doing a dinner at some sitdown at EPCOT, or maybe booking a late reservation at Rose and Crown to watch Illuminations on the water. That's a tough one to snag though.

I don't blame you starting off at MK even though it's not recommended, we'll be doing the same thing 2 days before you. If you can't get Rose and Crown, how about Tokyo Dining? You can watch Illuminations from their balcony and the view is gorgeous. Food is great too, we ate there for the 1st time in Jan. I don't know what was on the kids menu since that trip was just DH and I, but I do know they served the kids meals in this adorable monorail dish! A little boy a couple tables away from us had one and I kept trying to take a picture of it, but I didn't want his parents to see me b/c I was afraid they'd think I was weird...............

Evening might be the time to try Hollywood Studios, though I'm really not seeing much of a draw there for the little ones. I can see Toy Story Mania, maybe Little Mermaid and maybe the Playhouse Disney show for them. My kids will want to do the thrill rides like Tower and RnRC though, so if the littles need a break we can trudge on without them there.

Maybe BaTB show? Muppets if it's still open (haven't heard anything recently about it closing)? Indiana Jones for the 4 yo but I don't know how late the last show is......

I know it sounds crazy, but I love the MK on Thanksgiving morning

I'm considering doing MK this morning, also. Last year the plan was sleeping in, brunch at the Wave, AK, then HS. But it all got messed up when I got the stupid stomach bug Still not sure where we want to eat but a MK morning might be in our schedule
I think it all looks great! I'm going to say go ahead with the TH ADR, we've eaten there a few times and always loved the food and character interaction. Only thing is you'll get some repeat characters from CM so maybe CP is the way to go

 

[kittylady1972]

Oh man, I totally need to get my butt in gear and figure out not only my ADR's but park days, too! Nice spreadsheet; I'm not that modern lol. I still do everything with pencil and paper

DH and I did 4 parks in one day in January, it was cool! Of course 1. it was only the 2 of us, 2. it wasn't as crowded as Thanksgiving week, and 3. we didn't do a thrill ride/headliner in AK or Epcot.

I don't blame you starting off at MK even though it's not recommended, we'll be doing the same thing 2 days before you. If you can't get Rose and Crown, how about Tokyo Dining? You can watch Illuminations from their balcony and the view is gorgeous. Food is great too, we ate there for the 1st time in Jan. I don't know what was on the kids menu since that trip was just DH and I, but I do know they served the kids meals in this adorable monorail dish! A little boy a couple tables away from us had one and I kept trying to take a picture of it, but I didn't want his parents to see me b/c I was afraid they'd think I was weird...............

Maybe BaTB show? Muppets if it's still open (haven't heard anything recently about it closing)? Indiana Jones for the 4 yo but I don't know how late the last show is......

I'm considering doing MK this morning, also. Last year the plan was sleeping in, brunch at the Wave, AK, then HS. But it all got messed up when I got the stupid stomach bug Still not sure where we want to eat but a MK morning might be in our schedule
I think it all looks great! I'm going to say go ahead with the TH ADR, we've eaten there a few times and always loved the food and character interaction. Only thing is you'll get some repeat characters from CM so maybe CP is the way to go

Yes I'm a bit fanatical about the spreadsheets. We don't follow them to the letter, but it helps me plan out things like ADRs and FP+ reservations.

Thanks for the additional dining selection. I don't think we've ever done Tokyo Dining.

Great additional Studios suggestions...yes those are still an option.

Ah I really want to try TH and we'll see what happens, but when I just tallied up my potential food costs (yes I have a spreadsheet for THAT too!) it was SO CRAZY! I'm estimating easily $1500 for food for the five of us for 6 days. I actually priced out the dining plan just to see if that would save us a bit. Well it would be close...and probably not worth it. It is the three fixed price meals killing us: Chef Mickey breakfast, Tusker House breakfast and Boma for dinner...estimating about $750 for just those THREE meals . Might have to drop Tusker and might be better for me to do Chef for dinner for a little more because I'll feel we might get closer to our money's worth out of it that way even though the food has never been that great at CM. For the price of one CM breakfast I could feed all five of us easily...or pretty close since I have one kid that doesn't eat much at all.

 

[kittylady1972]

Another day of website checking, and still coming up with nothing. I can't even get 3 nights that week in something. So what do I do? I move on and start planning out other possible vacations of course.

I'd love to do a girls-only weekend with my daughter in October. She has a 4-day weekend and it would be fun to take her somewhere...and of course DVC points make it easy to make that free. I'd still have to pay for flights though. SPOILER ALERT: Not even CLOSE to free!

Then I thought maybe I'd take the whole family somewhere in October...and I started looking at either Hilton Head or Vero Beach in the DVC resorts. Those are possibilities.

However even better might be to go away for Spring Break NEXT year. I can't check those yet, but I'm thinking of maybe Hilton Head or Vero for a few days that week. Can't even look into checking it for myself until September, and since I'd probably have to waitlist, let's hope one of my other TWO BLT waitlists comes up before that time.

Honestly don't know my chances and should probably just stop looking at this point. Let the chips fall where they may so to speak and if we all get to BLT...then great and if NOT..then we'll deal with it.

THREE more weeks until ADRs!!!

 

[kittylady1972]

More crazy DVC checking yesterday and today with no luck. Wondering if I should increase my chances at BLT by booking a 1BR and Studio somewhere and then waitlisting a 1BR and Studio at BLT instead of banking on a 2BR unit coming available. That's a lot more DVC points to use though. I'm just getting impatient after the other waitlist came through so quickly.

This morning I could book Mon/Tue/Wed at BLT in a 1BR Lakeview room...then I'd have to waitlist Sun and Thursday night. Plus I can't fit nine of us in that so I'd have to waitlist a room for my brother and family...a studio...and hardly any availability at all for those. I don't even think I can get a studio room at SSR right now for all 5 nights.

I toyed with moving us all to Kidani...and again I can cover most nights there in a 1BR or Studio...just not Thanksgiving night.

So I will just do my best to remain patient and hope for my waitlist to come through at BLT for the 2BR.

We currently have about seven more weeks until our next Florida trip and our next vacation! This is our Universal Studios trip though and really looking forward to that one. We have about 3 days planned for Universal parks, then another 2 days at BG Tampa. I'm still debating tickets over that trip as well because there are a few different options, especially in terms of the BG tickets because we may or may not do SeaWorld as well. SeaWorld just doesn't have that many RIDES and my kids are just all about thrill rides. We'll see if I buy a ticket that gives us an option to visit there too.

As the weather gets nicer (well not today as it's dreary and rainy right now) I just look forward to getting out and enjoying amusement park season overall...that is when I'm not on the tennis courts because my family is a tennis widow when it comes to me and my sport. I usually spend a few hours on the weekend playing tennis matches so they are all left to do stuff on their own. Our vacation in June will also mean me taking a break from tennis for a few weeks and really just all of us spending time together.

Have a fabulous day and week everybody!

 

[kittylady1972]

LIFE update....
I hope everybody here had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. The rain here in MD finally gave way to sunshine on Saturday, which allowed me to get in a tennis match and also attend a lovely party for a friend of mine on Saturday. It's so nice to see the sun again.

My Mother's Day was nice overall. My oldest son ended up doing some research on how to make Tonga Toast for me and so he and his younger siblings prepared that for me Sunday morning. I wish I could say it went well...but most of the morning was a lot of fighting between siblings, an intervention by my husband, yelling and crying and apologies. Just when it looked like I'd be on my own for breakfast, they all pulled it together and prepared a GREAT version of Tonga Toast for me. It was awesome. We spent morning and early afternoon at a local amusement park where we have season passes, just walking around and riding a few favorites before returning home. We hosted my husband's parents, his sister with her boyfriend and her son. I did do quite a bit of cooking, but since it's seafood which I love it wasn't too bad.

Unfortunately after a mostly nice evening, I got a phone call from my dad in NC to give me the latest report on my mom. It was not the best of news. The treatment she has been on to keep her current tumor from progressing appears to no longer be working. It wasn't totally unexpected, but of course we were hopeful this treatment would show some good results. Now I'm sure mom will be happy to be done with that latest treatment, because years of cancer related treatments for her have taken quite a toll on her health. She was showing progress lately in her health, so I was hopeful, but I'm sure she wasn't happy to hear that this wasn't do her any good.

At the advice of her oncologist, they are going to seek a 2nd opinion from a more prominent medical institution. They will consult with them next week to see what kind of new options they may have for her. On the bright side, this still remains the only current site for cancer in her system, which is good and it isn't a fast-growing tumor. Unfortunately where it's located has proven a challenge as surgery was attempted several years ago but was unsuccessful. I just can't believe with all the things possible in the medical community there isn't some other option for her so hopefully she gets some good news. My mom had not bothered to mention this to me over the weekend, which isn't surprising which is why my dad called me while she was asleep to tell me the news. I now have to break the news to my younger brother (who also lives far away, but closer to my parents than I do) and hope that goes well.

Anyway dad was concerned about the Disney trip, since now things are really up in the air for them in terms of what's next. I told him not to worry at all, I could handle it if they needed to cancel. Worst case I guess I could rent out my reservation or I could give that room to my brother and family and then I'd book a smaller room for the five of us.

Trying not to think about all of this as we quickly approach the time when I can make my ADRs (next week). I'll still book them for all 11 of us because my hope is they will still be able to go.

Have given up stalking the DVC site at this point and just hoping for the best!

 

[ariane37]

I can truly relate to the arguing/crying etc. between your kids on Mother's Day! Every year I cross my fingers they'll give me that ONE day that I don't have to raise my voice or break up a fight lol. This year it actually worked Which means next year will suck

On another note I'm truly sorry about your mom and I hope there's another, good option available for her. I've lost so many people to cancer (I think in this day and age everyone has, unfortunately). I also lost my dad 17 years ago at age 52 and while it wasn't from cancer, I know the idea of losing a parent is........no words to describe, really . I'd be doing just as you are and continue planning the trip for everyone. Nothing right now says they'll HAVE to cancel! Again, I hope the news she gets next week is positive.

 

[kittylady1972]

I can truly relate to the arguing/crying etc. between your kids on Mother's Day! Every year I cross my fingers they'll give me that ONE day that I don't have to raise my voice or break up a fight lol. This year it actually worked Which means next year will suck

On another note I'm truly sorry about your mom and I hope there's another, good option available for her. I've lost so many people to cancer (I think in this day and age everyone has, unfortunately). I also lost my dad 17 years ago at age 52 and while it wasn't from cancer, I know the idea of losing a parent is........no words to describe, really . I'd be doing just as you are and continue planning the trip for everyone. Nothing right now says they'll HAVE to cancel! Again, I hope the news she gets next week is positive.

Glad you had a drama-free Mother's Day! Between dealing with that in the morning, then having to deal with my SIL and her new "boyfriend" at dinner, then my dad's call that night about my mom...I had to make the best of it and look at the positive.

Thanks for the sympathy. My mom has had so many battles for the last almost 10 years now. She's had some good years but I know the endless doctors and treatments for the last few years have been very hard on her overall health. I'm hopeful that having a 2nd opinion at a more prominent Cancer treatment center (something I suggested many years ago when her most recent cancer diagnosis happened after being almost 5 years cancer-free) will provide some good news.

 

[ELSA711]

Can't wait to read all this and if you have tips for a first time Thanksgiving week traveler, let me know.

We love WDW and go at least once a year or every other year. We however have never experienced a holiday there...Scared out of my mind about crowd level.

 

[kittylady1972]

Can't wait to read all this and if you have tips for a first time Thanksgiving week traveler, let me know.

We love WDW and go at least once a year or every other year. We however have never experienced a holiday there...Scared out of my mind about crowd level.

Well we are pretty well seasoned Thanksgiving Week travelers at this point. I don't find the crowds to be too horrible...except on maybe Thanksgiving Day at MK which I admit was a madhouse. We like to hit that day EARLY in the morning and leave by about noon or 1pm when it seems like there are wall to wall people!

Otherwise we take advantage of the EMH mornings when we can for sure. If we can't make EMH at a park for that day, we go to another park instead. We have our dining reservations booked at 180 days of course. The weather is usually pretty decent which means we don't feel a need for breaks due to the heat, but it can also be chilly and we've purchased gloves to wear in the parks before. We've also had times where we are in the pool on Thanksgiving Day.

Seeing the parks all decorated for the holidays is just so nice. I will definitely be sad about not seeing the Osborne Lights this year, but hoping we can catch the new evening show at Animal Kingdom at least.

 

[Kimberly9701]

Well we are pretty well seasoned Thanksgiving Week travelers at this point. I don't find the crowds to be too horrible...except on maybe Thanksgiving Day at MK which I admit was a madhouse. We like to hit that day EARLY in the morning and leave by about noon or 1pm when it seems like there are wall to wall people!

Otherwise we take advantage of the EMH mornings when we can for sure. If we can't make EMH at a park for that day, we go to another park instead. We have our dining reservations booked at 180 days of course. The weather is usually pretty decent which means we don't feel a need for breaks due to the heat, but it can also be chilly and we've purchased gloves to wear in the parks before. We've also had times where we are in the pool on Thanksgiving Day.

Seeing the parks all decorated for the holidays is just so nice. I will definitely be sad about not seeing the Osborne Lights this year, but hoping we can catch the new evening show at Animal Kingdom at least.

We will be at Epcot on Black Friday, doing CP that night. Should I expect crazy crowds? I'm nervous about it! We leave for the Fantasy the next morning and then are returning back to WDW for 4 nights after. The only way to fit in CP was to add the pre cruise night as well.