An Overplanner Takes on WDW – Feb 2019 PTR now with bonus Aug trip (New TR linked 9/2))

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Double Digit Dance!

Today is officially 99 days until our trip, which is crazy. This time of year is always nuts for us: Halloween, two weeks later girls’ birthday, two weeks later Thanksgiving, and then the Christmas celebrations feel like they last all of December. Our FP day is over the Christmas break, so that 99 day countdown also means I have a LOT to accomplish in the next 39 days. My current project is going through a year’s worth of photos to make photobooks, calendars, and collages for grandparent Christmas presents. We always get really great deals on Shutterfly, so I don’t spend a lot of money, but it is quite a time commitment.

My biggest moves on the planning front have been figuring out what clothes, airplane entertainment, etc we’ll be getting for the trip which can double as Christmas presents. I ordered some shirts for hubby and myself, went way overboard on the girls, and even got a couple of the Ali Express mom-and-me dresses for myself. The girls and I will all have Chewy dresses and hubby has a Chewy shirt for one of our HS days. I also got a different princess for each of the girls and myself, along with a Prince Charming t-shirt for hubby which I'm thinking we'll wear on our CRT day. I started laying out the girls clothes to double check things, and this isn’t even all of it!




Our other project of sorts is having the girls actually watch the movies for the characters we'll be seeing. They've been reading the Golden Books, listening to the music, playing with the dolls, and generally interacting with these characters for years, but we've only just started banging through the movies. They have really been enjoying it, although they would prefer fewer "bad guys" and "scary parts". It's been such a long time since I watched any of these movies myself that I forgot how intense some of the scenes get, especially for little kids. I was toying with switching out 'Ohana for either the new Storybook Dining at Artist Point or 1900 Park Fare, but I think the girls would be too scared of the Evil Queen or step sisters and step mother to enjoy either meal. It looks like we'll be getting our one character-free TS after all! And, with that, it's back to the photo book grindstone for me. I've been trying to weed through at least two months of pictures a night, so that I can have the books done in time for Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales. July and August, here I come.

 

[cmarsh31]

Reading your adr thoughts - we just got back from a quick trip & I just completely rearranged our Feb plans werew doing both 1900 & the new Storybook.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Reading your adr thoughts - we just got back from a quick trip & I just completely rearranged our Feb plans werew doing both 1900 & the new Storybook.

I started testing the waters with the girls, asking them how they'd feel about a meal with Cinderella and her step family. They immediately asked if there were any meals with just Cinderella and not "the mean guys." I guess we'll save those for a future trip.

 

[cmarsh31]

I started testing the waters with the girls, asking them how they'd feel about a meal with Cinderella and her step family. They immediately asked if there were any meals with just Cinderella and not "the mean guys." I guess we'll save those for a future trip.

My kids are 10 &13, so we love the interaction! You never know what they'll do with a teenage boy!

 

[rideswithchrist]

Chewie dresses???!!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Today is officially 99 days until our trip, which is crazy.

YEAH!!!! My 99 day mark came and went and I was almost too busy to even notice.

This time of year is always nuts for us:

It really is! My fast pass day is Christmas Eve and I haven't thought that much about timing yet! Oye!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

'Twas the Night Before Fastpasses

Merry Christmas, everyone!! I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season and got everything you wanted from Santa. Our family had a lovely but thoroughly exhausting Christmas and Boxing Day. Rumor has it that the 26th can be a great day to just relax and eat leftovers, but not when your kids are five. I spent today helping them open boxes, put together puzzles, and learn the rules to their new board games. Without fail, my set up time was longer than their play time before I heard, “Mom, what else can we open?”. Maybe, once they’re old enough to wield scissors unsupervised and read the directions to their new gadgets, I’ll have a chill December 26th.

Today was doubly stressful because tomorrow is our fastpass day. I’ve known from the time we booked the trip that fastpasses on 12/27 was going to stink, but it’s not like I was going to change my dates over that. So, for the last few days, I’ve been committed to not only wrapping a few presents every evening, but also double checking my daily plans to make sure show schedules, park hours, etc haven’t changed enough to impact the fastpasses I’m booking. Obviously, Disney still has 60 days to mess those things up and screw with my plans but, for now, things look pretty good. My goals are as follows:

2/26 (60+1): Winnie the Pooh 9am, Rapunzel M&G 10am, Peter Pan 11am
2/27 (+2): Spaceship Earth 10:30am, Test Track 3pm, Mission Space 4pm
2/28 (+3): Ariel M&G 9:30am, Enchanted Tales with Belle 10:30am, Seven Dwarfs 1pm
3/1 (+4): Safari 10:30am, Everest for me and characters for everyone else 2:30pm, FoP for me and NRJ for rest 4:30pm
3/2 (+5): Beauty and the Beast show 10:30am, Slinky Dog 12pm, Frozen Sing Along 2pm
3/3 (+6): Big Thunder 9am, Pirates 10am, Splash 12pm
3/4 (+7): 2 morning throw away tier 1s to expire, Frozen Ever After 4:15pm
3/5 (+8): Slinky 9am, Star Tours 10am, Muppet Vision 11am
3/6 (+9): Seven Dwarfs 9am, Space for Mom and Buzz for rest 10:30am, Big Thunder 11:30am

I am going to be dragging my husband out of bed with me so that the two of us are working on these together. I think my priority list is as follows:

FoP 4:30pm on +4
Slinky 12pm on +5
Slinky 9am on +8
Seven Dwarfs 1pm on +3
Seven Dwarfs 9am on +9
Frozen 4:15pm on +7
Everything else

I think I'm going to work on FoP and Seven Dwarfs myself and give hubby the Slinky and Frozen job. Then, I'll let him go back to bed while I fill the rest out. The FoP is the one I’m most concerned about as we only have one AK day scheduled. However, since I’m only booking a party of 1 late in the day, I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get it. The doubles for Slinky and Seven Dwarfs would be great, obviously, but I think I’ll be fine getting the +8 and +9 days, even if the earlier ones don’t pan out. In just a few short hours, we shall see…

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

This sounds like a good plan of attack. I have my fingers crossed for you.

If you don’t get what you want right away keep trying to change the times and looking. It was very spotty for me.

Also, if the desktop version isn’t working try your phone. It was funny how one would work for me and then the other would work.

Good Luck!!!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Also, if the desktop version isn’t working try your phone. It was funny how one would work for me and then the other would work.

Too funny that you reminded me of this. When we got started, hubby was doing great, I thought I was doing great, and then the page crashed when I got to confirming. Chrome, Firefox, regular and incognito all crashing at the same screen for me although he was fine (good thing I gave him Slinky!). I ended up doing my set of the FPs on my phone.

We got everything we wanted at nearly the times we wanted, but I definitely need to go tweak plans sometime soon. Of course, the kids are in need of parental attention, so I don't get to start fiddling with my spreadsheets just yet.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Glad to hear you got all the times you wanted! Most of the rides you can tweak for awhile and still have options. Just not those big ones.

Now that the holidays are over, I have to really flush out my plans as well. I am at work today, and I think it will be slow, so hopefully I can start to do that today!

 

[Destinyz12]

Sounds like all good FP choices, except with 3 small kids and 1 adult I don't know how that would work for Buzz, as not everyone is going to be able to ride together, and there's only 2 shooting guns per car

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Sounds like all good FP choices, except with 3 small kids and 1 adult I don't know how that would work for Buzz, as not everyone is going to be able to ride together.

Yeah, I remembered that as I was booking. Right now, I've got him taking them to see Tink. It's s bit of a walk, but the only thing close that he could do alone with 3 kids is the tea cups and the spinning messes with him.

 

[Destinyz12]

If you don't manually spin the teacups they are actually very mild and don't "spin", they just kinda glide. I would check out some youtube videos and see if that would work

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

If you don't manually spin the teacups they are actually very mild and don't "spin", they just kinda glide. I would check out some youtube videos and see if that would work

I'll check with hubby. The kids always request that we spin as fast as we can at similar rides and I don't want to put him in the position of choosing between being the party pooper and making himself sick.

 

[disney-inspired]

Why Such A Long Trip?

9 days, 8 nights is definitely an undertaking with young children, even more considering that we’re planning all 9 days as park days.

We aren’t going to be the family that goes to Disney every year. Rather, we’re planning a couple of bigger trips while raising our girls. This trip, we’re going totally into the Disney bubble. We want to soak up all of the magic with girls who still believe in it. We likely won’t be back in Orlando until they’re 9 or 10 years old, and maybe once again in middle school. I anticipate that both of those will be shorter trips, and include Universal as well, so this is theoretically our only full Disney trip.

We want to do the 9 days so that we can have lots of time in each park to stop and savor. While we want to hit all of our must-do attractions, we want to do it at a more leisurely pace than a typical 5-6 day trip could allow. We’re looking at breaking our full days as 3 in MK, 2 in Epcot, and 1 each at HS and AK. We’re doing arrival day HS and departure day MK, so that’s about another half day and a set of fastpasses in each of those parks. We’re not getting hoppers because the travel between parks would eat into our time too much. Rather, we’ll camp out in one park a day for as long as the girls can hack it, then head back to the resort.

I totally get your reasoning for a long trip. Make the most of this great age at a wonderful place. I'm going with my nieces (4 & 2) in January and I'm so excited to capture their reactions to all their favorite characters (Fab 5 + Winnie the Pooh). The girls are just getting into Sesame Street but they LOVE music so that's what's drawing them into it. I'm going to do a quick google search and see if we can do Sesame Place visit sometime in the next few years.

You all are going to have a blast!

 

[disney-inspired]

Hello! I just found your PTR and I'm bummed I found it so late. I love your planning style!

Hope you were able to get all your FP today!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Hello! I just found your PTR and I'm bummed I found it so late. I love your planning style!

Hope you were able to get all your FP today!

Welcome! I'm not sure I actually love my planning style. The "over-analyze everything" method can be a killer

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Fastpass Success!

Does anyone else get an anxious stomach the night before big happenings? You’re laying there, exhausted, but your stomach feels tight and just won’t let you sleep? I get that way and it’s incredibly frustrating. Generally, I want to have a good night’s sleep before something big, but I never can manage it. All of that is to say that I barely slept last night and I really could have used it.

My fastpass morning was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of frustration level. I thought things were going well for me, everything was loading quickly, but then the page would crash every time just as I had selected which park I wanted to book for a given day. Chrome, Firefox, regular and incognito, all crashing in the same spot. Simultaneously, I was successfully booking things on my phone, but that interface is much more annoying than the desktop site. My husband, meanwhile, was having absolutely no problems on his machine and he got through his priority list just in time to deal with the waking children.

As to the actual FPs, we got all of the big hitters just about where we wanted them. FoP, SDD, SDMT all close enough to where I wanted them that I didn’t have to juggle my plans. Oddly enough, what did cause the need for shifting were dumb secondary rides. The Ariel M&G and Winnie the Pooh ride weren’t close enough to when I wanted, so I had to rework my touring plans for those mornings. Everything still fits, but I have to cut back and forth a bit rather than working in one direction. Also odd: there are no Beauty and the Beast stage show FPs on the days we’ll be in HS. I don’t really need the FP but I wanted it to burn one of my HS tier 1s so that I’d be refreshing for extra TSL that much sooner. I’m assuming they just aren’t loaded into the system yet (there’s no way I could get SDD but BatB was fully allocated) so I’ll keep checking on that.

It took me about 45 minutes to book for 9 park days, which seems to be good compared to the many complaints I see on these boards about melting Olafs. More important than how long it took, I got everything I wanted, so I am one happy camper.

In case you're wondering, here's how we landed:

2/26 (+1) 9:05am Peter Pan, 10:10am Rapunzel M&G, 11:15am Winnie the Pooh
2/27 10:25am Spaceship Earth, 3:00pm Test Track, 4:00pm Mission: Space
2/28 10:20am Ariel M&G, 12:30pm Enchanted Tales, 1:45pm Seven Dwarfs
3/1 10:30am Safari, 2:35pm Everest (only me), 2:40pm Mickie Minnie M&G (the family), 4:40pm FoP (me), 4:35pm NRJ (fam)
3/2 10:30am Little Mermaid, 12:05pm Slinky Dog, 2:00pm Frozen Sing Along
3/3 9:05am Big Thunder, 10:05am Pirates, 12:05pm Splash
3/4 10:00am Figment, 11:05am Pixar, 4:30pm Frozen Ever After
3/5 9:40am SDD, 10:50am Star Tours, 1:30pm Muppet Vision
3/6 9:25am SDMT, 10:25am Space (me), 10:30am Tink M&G (fam), 11:35am Big Thunder

Actually having this booked makes me feel so much better about the trip. There's still a lot to do in the next 2 months, but this was weighing on me the most because my success or failure seemed so out of my control. I really didn't want to have to RD any of the major rides with the kids, nor did I want to have to drop important ADRs to pick up important FPs. Thank goodness I didn't have to make either choice.

Now, with Christmas behind us and FPs booked, I can start getting super hyped for the trip! Packing list, here I come

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

I was successfully booking things on my phone, but that interface is much more annoying than the desktop site. My husband, meanwhile, was having absolutely no problems on his machine and he got through his priority list just in time to deal with the waking children.

Strange that he didn't have issues while you did. Do you have different computer types?

Also odd: there are no Beauty and the Beast stage show FPs on the days we’ll be in HS. I don’t really need the FP but I wanted it to burn one of my HS tier 1s so that I’d be refreshing for extra TSL that much sooner. I’m assuming they just aren’t loaded into the system yet

Wonder if they are considering shutting it down soon? I see that you got Test Track. I couldn't get any on our first EPCOT day. I should look again...

Now, with Christmas behind us and FPs booked, I can start getting super hyped for the trip! Packing list, here I come

YEAH!!!!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Do you have different computer types?

Both running Windows 10 and Chrome incognito to start, although I then started trying to browser hop. I was logged in on my profile and had him on his. I have no idea why my profile wouldn't work on the desktop but was fine on the app.

Wonder if they are considering shutting it down soon? I see that you got Test Track. I couldn't get any on our first EPCOT day. I should look again

I didn't realize Test Track was that hard at 60 days. We're going late afternoon of our +2 day and it was wide open most of the day when I was booking.