FPs for All
July News:
So, Hubby stomped on my July plans a little bit. Apparently, his expense reporting for daily food has to be broken out into meals (he ticks off what was breakfast, lunch, and dinner). Having 4-5 charges for $12 each doesn't really work for this system. Instead, I went ahead and booked a 4:30 ADR at Homecomin' for dinner. We'll try out some of the QS counters when we get there, wander a bit, then do a proper dinner before going to AK. I found our from
@StarWarsMomofGirls! that we can get the Morimoto ribs at their takeout counter, so that's going to be where we start and we'll see what else strikes us.
I have FPs booked on the DAH ticket 6:15 Kali River, 7:15 Safari, 8:15 Tough to be a Bug. I originally had Primeval Whirl planned for my third, but it's not expected to be back up and running in time. I figure Bug is better to knock out before the party starts and save party time for a few more EE rides! We'll do those three experiences plus watch Tree of Life awakenings in the time between the 7pm arrival and 9pm party start.
Our plan for the party is to start with Dinosaur and Triceratops spin (yes, we're doing it, and we hope to be the only two people on the spinner!), then go up and exhaust ourselves on EE. We're going to watch RoL with an empty stadium and some premium Mickey bars, then head across to Pandora to do FoP a few times, with NRJ thrown in for good measure. Depending on how long the FoP lines are that night, we'll either end the day in Pandora or head across to finish out with a couple more rides on EE. I am SO EXCITED for this utterly ridiculous in-and-out trip to Orlando and it's only 8 days away!!!
My only bummer for this trip is that we won't have access to our photopass pictures. Even the one day memory maker is too rich for my blood, but I really wish we could get all of those EE ride photos without the watermark. My friend who is getting an AP won't have it until the end of August, so it's quite possible she won't be able to go back and download early July photos at that point. Boo!
August News
Speaking of August, we had our FP day for that trip as well and did pretty well. Because we're visiting at the end of my friend's much longer trip, I was logged into her account at 7am on her FP day and booked our combined FPs while she was booking her family's FPs for earlier in the trip.
I thought, with booking for +8 and later, that we'd have our pick, but it wasn't quite true. We couldn't get SDD before 11:30am even on +8, so we had to shuffle plans a little bit. Here's what our days look like:
8/25: Flight lands at 2:37pm, place
Amazon Prime Now order, ME to Yacht Club. Grab groceries and rented stroller, check in, grab friends' kids so they can start their date night. Hit Stormalong Bay, have QS dinner and snacks on Crescent Lake (there will be Ample Hills!). If Skyliner is running, maybe do the dinner part at CBR or AoA, just for the fun of riding the Skyliner.
8/26: HS has a 9am opening. Assuming Jedi Training is still a thing (they only have dates through July on the calendar right now), get to the park by 8:15 to sign the kids up.
-RD AS2 and TSMM.
-Leave Hubby(s) with kids in line for Buzz. Friend and I grab her kids' MBs and do ToT and RNR together on their prebooked FPs (ToT 9:05, RnR 9:20). They didn't have any use for their 2nd set of tier 2s this day and the Moms want a chance to ride things together! If he wants to go nuts, my Hubby will bring the smallest, lightest child over to RnR and we'll get RSs on his and my band to use on our date night later. He will then rush small child back to Buzz character line.
-Friend's family has 10:10 H&V ADR. We will do racing academy and use FPs for 11:am BatB show (which we didn't get to see earlier this year as it was under refurb). May try to meet Fancy Nancy depending on how we're doing for time.
- Friend's family has Indy FPs for 12pm show (if they make it out of breakfast in time). We will standby said show (another one we missed earlier this year). I will mobile order lunch at Backlot to bring into line/the show to have lunch while we wait and watch. I will also be enjoying the funnel cake sundae come hell or high water (I'm not bitter at all that I couldn't get this in March!).
- If Jedi Training, hopefully there's a 1pm-ish slot which we would sign the kids up for. The Indy show lets out at 12:30 and we'd walk right there to sign in the kids in for their Jedi Training. Then, we'd do the Muppets show immediately thereafter.
- If no Jedi training, over to Muppets.
- SDD FPs are for 1:25pm with AS2 for friend's littlest and Hubby. Depending on Jedi training, we will either use at the beginning or end of our FP window. They will RS for their older two, our crew will only get one ride.
- If we couldn't snag a slot that works for Jedi Training before the SDD FP, we would do it here as an alternate. A 2:20 or later show would give us enough time to use a 1:25 SDD FP at 1:20 then hike back down to check in the kids.
-Everyone walks back to YC/BC, hopefully before we melt into gooey August-in-Florida puddles.
SWIM BREAK
- Friends have our kids and 5:45 ADR for Raglan Road.
- Hubby and I used ours (and kids) 2nd set of tier 2s to book ToT for 4:30, RnR for 5:30. Depending on how he felt that morning, we'll also have RnR RS.
- We'll standby/4th FP Star Tours, AS2, and TSMM before getting a spot for the Star Wars fireworks. If I somehow missed my funnel cake sundae during the day, I am getting that sucker tonight. Seriously, if the stand is closed, I will break in and make myself one!!! We'll also split some sort of QS dinner in here
- Walk back to YC for a night cap and snacks at Crew's Cup lounge. There's an everything pretzel with dipping cheese that Hubby has been eyeing.
8/27:
- Attempt to force the kids to sleep in (yeah, right), pool time, general rest
- 2:05 ADR for all 10 of us at Chef Mickey
-
MNSSHP!!! FPs are 4pm Peter Pan and 5pm 7DMT. We'll then split up, putting adults into both the Moana and 7 dwarves lines. Assuming Moana starts meeting earlier than party start again this year, we'll have the kids down on Magic Carpets or in the Treehouse until adult is getting closer to front of Moana line. After meeting her, we'll all trek up to the 7D line and wait it out.
- From there, our party plans are to see what strikes us. We'll do a combo of ToT and rides until the kids tap out at various times. We'll eventually send one adult, whichever kids are sleeping, and all the strollers to stake out a fireworks spot, then do the 2nd parade and the midnight stage show. The kids have been given the choice of trying to watch the first parade or ToTing and rides. They want to ToT and, if they're too tired to see the 2nd parade, then so be it. Honestly, I'm not sure that they'd even be awake for the first parade. When they're moving, they can stay up. But, once they sit in that stroller for any length of time, they'll crash. So, if they're going to crash in the stroller while waiting, they might as well do so a little later, before fireworks, than doing it earlier before a parade
I know that Hubby, friend, and I are in it for the long haul, even if it means taking turns staying with kids crashed in strollers while adults ride roller coasters. Friend's Hubby is a little less parkstormer, so he may tap out and take some of his tired children with him.
8/28:
- Kids wake up whenever
- Check out of YC, bags to bell services for transfer
- Blizzard Beach for however long the kids want to, probably shower and change there. The girls aren't yet 48" so they can't do the bigger slides, but they're really excited about what they can do, including the zipline in the kids area. We've watched a couple of videos and they are
pumped.
- Bus to Poly for dinner (I want the QS nachos and bread pudding from Tambu lounge. Hubby wants the lemon lime dole whip, kids will pick whatever between the three locations). Maybe put our names in for Trader Sams if we get there early enough.
- Monorail to Contemporary, check in, kids to bed.
- Hubby gets to wander this evening to see fireworks, water parade, etc.
8/29:
- EARLY alarm, bags to Bell Services, walk to MK
- 7am EMH plans Space, Speedway, and maybe Astro if we can fit it in
- 8am RD in Frontierland: BTMRR, Splash, JC, HM, Small World all standby
- Use 9:30am PP FP as close to 10:30 as possible
- Under the Sea
- 10:30am FP 7DMT
- Pop down to Liberty Square to meet Mary Poppins (girls hadn't seen the movie in March so we didn't have her on our radar. They have since seen and loved it. She only meets a couple times in the morning at MK, so we are going to have to do a little backtracking to fit her in)
- 11:30am WtP FP
- Philharmagic, Tea Cups, and/or Monster's Inc while we refresh for 4th FPs
- Friends have 1pm CRT, so we will definitely split up.
- I have 1:15 Plaza, Hubby has 1:20 Liberty Tree. We'll decide the night before if we want to do a sit down meal (and enjoy the air conditioning) for lunch or if we want to QS and keep hitting rides. Whichever we do, we'd likely share a couple of meals between the five of us and focus on dessert (these were booked because bottomless milkshakes and ooey gooey toffee cake: decisions, decisions).
- We'll see where the mood and FPs take us until we have to walk back to Contemporary and catch ME. Flight is 7:42 out of MCO, so ME will pick up some time after 4pm
- Bonus exciting news: when we booked our flight, there were no free seats left together. We would either have to pay $20 a seat to select Comfort Plus options or let the system do the assigning. We opted to leave it up to chance with the assumption that, if we were completely separated, people would want to give us seats near our kids rather than deal with them. Maybe not the most responsible parenting option, but I'm cheap. I had also read that, when the cheap seats have all been selected, the system will assign you the Comfort Plus options without you having to pay for them. Lo-and-behold, the system has assigned us seats all together, 3 and 2 across the aisle from each other, in the premium seats!
And, there you have it. We're really packing a lot into a short time but, hey, go big or go home, right?!?
