Updated 7/28 - SWGE Preview trip planning! - Coooo-rrect! Mom/Daughter Do WDW—A Feb 2019 TR

I really enjoyed your report, what a fun mother/daughter trip. This is something my daughter and I do together several times a Year!
 
Seriously enjoy your trip reports!! Thanks for brightening a grey day in Maine!!
Thanks for reading! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. :) Also, it's a grey day here in VA as well...may the sun return for us both soon! :)

Wow, what a great trip. It's wonderful that your mom got so much pixie dust for her birthday. Thanks for a great report !
Thanks for reading! Glad you enjoyed it :D

Amazing trip, thanks for sharing! Having your parents in Las Vegas definitely sounds like a reason to go to Disneyland :D All the great times you had with your mom have made me even more excited to bring my dad this year!
Thank you for reading! Right? Disneyland here I come.... :) I hope you have an amazing trip with your Dad!!! :D

Fantastic trip report. I hope I’m still going with my daughter when she is married! Need to add that to the perfect son-in-law description.
Great photos and reviews- thanks!
Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :) LOL definitely needs to be part of the perfect son-in-law...if he comes in between a mom/daughter Disney trip, can he be all that perfect? :rotfl2:

I really enjoyed your report, what a fun mother/daughter trip. This is something my daughter and I do together several times a Year!
Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. How fun! I wish I could go with my mom several times a year; I'm sure you and your daughter must have awesome trips!

Sounded like you guys had a great trip. So glad that your mom got to come with you. Sounded like she had a great time! And 7 kids! She def deserved it!
Thank you for reading! We definitely did have a great trip. :) Right? All the more reason to go more often, though...bwahahahaha :D
 


Thank you for an excellent trip report - I'm glad I stumbled across it! I'm glad you had such a fantastic vacation with your mom!

Your mom definitely got pixie dust everywhere she went... an upgrade to club level, cupcakes and treats right and left, Fastpasses popping up without long wait times (and hard-to-get ones to boot) - amazing!!!

You and your mom sound like my kind of people with your love of thrill rides. I'm impressed with how many attractions you experienced during your trip! You certainly put in a lot of steps... goodness, 58 MILES?! I know I've seen folks include their daily step counts on their TR's, but I don't think I've seen anyone add them all together.

They started rolling out the morning extra hours on one of my last trips, and I thought it seemed silly to pay extra for a few extra rides. However, your after hours at the Studios may have changed my mind as it looked like SO much fun! I know you said you preferred MK for the after hours, but I think HS may be my first choice as you could get so many rides on TOT and so much time in Toy Story Land. If it would ever work out for me, I would seriously consider this!

You're the second person who wrote about their breakfast at the Garden Grill and that fantastic cinnamon roll. I think I may need to put that on the list for a future trip!

I don't remember the annual passholder entrance at the parks, but perhaps I've just never noticed as I've never had an AP! You mentioned going through this entrance with your mom at AK - did she get an AP, too? Or do they allow a passholder to bring another person with them through the line?

Thank you for your helpful tips on grabbing the next FP+ while in line! You could change existing Fastpasses on the app but not collect new ones when I was last there without visiting a kiosk - yes, it's been a few years! I hope I'm as successful as you were!

Thanks again for the wonderful report! I hope you'll write another after your next visit!
 


Loved this TR! What a wonderful time with your mom. Nice upgrade to the suite. Too bad the bed was so squeaky!

When is your next DW adventure? I'm sure you're at least thinking about it. :smickey:
 
Wow, what a trip! I'm not sure you can ever bring her back since there is no way any trip could top how magical this one was. Thank you for sharing!
 
What a great trip! I'm glad you both had an amazing time!! Hopefully you can plan another girls trip soon!
Thanks for reading! I hope so too--but maybe Disneyland this time... :)

Thank you for an excellent trip report - I'm glad I stumbled across it! I'm glad you had such a fantastic vacation with your mom!

Your mom definitely got pixie dust everywhere she went... an upgrade to club level, cupcakes and treats right and left, Fastpasses popping up without long wait times (and hard-to-get ones to boot) - amazing!!!

You and your mom sound like my kind of people with your love of thrill rides. I'm impressed with how many attractions you experienced during your trip! You certainly put in a lot of steps... goodness, 58 MILES?! I know I've seen folks include their daily step counts on their TR's, but I don't think I've seen anyone add them all together.

They started rolling out the morning extra hours on one of my last trips, and I thought it seemed silly to pay extra for a few extra rides. However, your after hours at the Studios may have changed my mind as it looked like SO much fun! I know you said you preferred MK for the after hours, but I think HS may be my first choice as you could get so many rides on TOT and so much time in Toy Story Land. If it would ever work out for me, I would seriously consider this!

You're the second person who wrote about their breakfast at the Garden Grill and that fantastic cinnamon roll. I think I may need to put that on the list for a future trip!

I don't remember the annual passholder entrance at the parks, but perhaps I've just never noticed as I've never had an AP! You mentioned going through this entrance with your mom at AK - did she get an AP, too? Or do they allow a passholder to bring another person with them through the line?

Thank you for your helpful tips on grabbing the next FP+ while in line! You could change existing Fastpasses on the app but not collect new ones when I was last there without visiting a kiosk - yes, it's been a few years! I hope I'm as successful as you were!

Thanks again for the wonderful report! I hope you'll write another after your next visit!
Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

Right? 58 miles sounds like a ton, but luckily it didn't feel like all that much.

So, I get irritated about the "pay to play" aspect, but the Disney After Hours events and the early morning events do come with practically no crowds, which is worth it for ride junkies! It's amazing how much you can do without the crowds. I hope you get to try Disney After Hours some time!! :)

AP entrance: I brought Mom through with me. She doesn't have an AP, just me so not sure if I snuck her through or if that's allowed, but we did it a couple times and never had any kind of an issue. :)

Yes! Definitely be looking for more fastpasses on the app--you can get so many (and sometimes awesome ones... :D)

Ha, I definitely will write one for my next trip, whenever it ends up being...I love having the record for myself, and hopefully others find it somewhat helpful or entertaining! :)

Loved this TR! What a wonderful time with your mom. Nice upgrade to the suite. Too bad the bed was so squeaky!

When is your next DW adventure? I'm sure you're at least thinking about it. :smickey:
Thanks for reading! :) Yea...I have never been on such a squeaky bed! But at least I slept well. :D

Not sure when next DW adventure will be--I'd like to get one more trip out of my AP before it expires in September, so maybe this summer, a solo trip? Nothing planned though. :(

Wow, what a trip! I'm not sure you can ever bring her back since there is no way any trip could top how magical this one was. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for reading! :D Right? Either I have to bring her with me every time as a pixie dust magic, or we can just never go back 'cause there's no topping it....one or the other! :)
 
So, no time for a pre-trip report (though I may do a trip report cause...why not!), but guess who just scored a reservation for the Star Wars AP preview?! This gal!

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I'd bit the bullet and reserved rooms at All Star Movies on Tuesday when Disney announced the dates, and they're nonrefundable (Aug 16-22), so I was going to go to Disneyworld regardless, but I'm so excited that I got in to the preview! And it doesn't hurt that the rooms at All Star Movies were $74 a night for 6 nights, and then I got my flights for $95 (one flight was free with my points, so $95 one way isn't too bad. Not amazing, but not bad!). Unfortunately Trevor can't come with me (he doesn't have an annual pass or the time off work), so this will truly be a solo trip. I'm so excited!
 
Yay for you! I've done several solo trips to DLR but none to WDW. I will though. I love going with others, but enjoy the solo trips too. Nothing like doing whatever you want whenever you want while in the parks. My last trip was with my daughter and granddaughter, 10 days in early July. So fun! but so HOT! never again. This PNW girl HATES hot weather. Our next trip, hubby and I will be in November. Much better.
So happy that you got the star wars preview like you wanted. I can take SW or leave it. Its interesting how the DL opening has been so lackluster after all the hype. Interesting to see what will happen at DW. i'm really confused as to why they put an entrance in Toy Story Land. isn't that part of HS crowded enough???
 
Yay for you! I've done several solo trips to DLR but none to WDW. I will though. I love going with others, but enjoy the solo trips too. Nothing like doing whatever you want whenever you want while in the parks. My last trip was with my daughter and granddaughter, 10 days in early July. So fun! but so HOT! never again. This PNW girl HATES hot weather. Our next trip, hubby and I will be in November. Much better.
So happy that you got the star wars preview like you wanted. I can take SW or leave it. Its interesting how the DL opening has been so lackluster after all the hype. Interesting to see what will happen at DW. i'm really confused as to why they put an entrance in Toy Story Land. isn't that part of HS crowded enough???

I hope you get to do a solo WDW trip soon! You're exactly right--nothing like only having to please yourself. :) But how fun with your daughter and grandaughter!! I totally feel you on the heat...I'm not looking forward to the heat but a small price to pay for one last Disney trip this year!

I like the original star wars rather than the new stuff, but I'm mostly excited for a new land with hopefully lower crowds--the AP previews of Pandora seemed to have pretty low crowds so I'm hoping for the same! :) No idea why the entrance is in TSL! *shrugs*
 
So, no time for a pre-trip report (though I may do a trip report cause...why not!), but guess who just scored a reservation for the Star Wars AP preview?! This gal!

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I'd bit the bullet and reserved rooms at All Star Movies on Tuesday when Disney announced the dates, and they're nonrefundable (Aug 16-22), so I was going to go to Disneyworld regardless, but I'm so excited that I got in to the preview! And it doesn't hurt that the rooms at All Star Movies were $74 a night for 6 nights, and then I got my flights for $95 (one flight was free with my points, so $95 one way isn't too bad. Not amazing, but not bad!). Unfortunately Trevor can't come with me (he doesn't have an annual pass or the time off work), so this will truly be a solo trip. I'm so excited!

Yay! I can't wait to hear all about it!!!
 
Planning a trip in 19 days!

So, Trevor decided that he wanted to come down with me for the weekend after all! Yay! He's just coming for Friday and Saturday and flying back EARLY Sunday morning, while I stay til Thursday, but I'm so excited! I do love solo trips, but I love doing Disney with Trevor--more fun together. :)
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Anyways, now that the sappy stuff is out of the way, here's my plan!!

Friday, Aug 16th
Our flight takes off at 6 am (SO EARLY), but we land at MCO at 8:15 am. Woot! We'll then take the Magical Express to our room at All Star Movies. Bonus: when I linked the priceline reservation in MDE, it was a preferred room! Yay!
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Anyways, once we're dropped off and quickly settled in at All Star Movies (any recommendations on requests or tips for All Star Movies?), we're going to head to the Vineland outlets, cause I'm a sucker for sales and like saving money. "saving money", at a Disney outlet. Right. We all know this is going to happen instead:
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Anyways, once we spend all our money at the outlets, we're going to go to AKL for our favorite resort lunch: Sanaa. We are suckers for that bread service. I mean, how can you not love it though? Then after lunch, we'll go to the Magic Kingdom, for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! Since Trevor doesn't have an annual pass, if we can find a kindly DVC member willing to adopt him and get him into the park at 2 pm, that's when we'll enter. If we don't get adopted by a DVC member, we'll hang out at AKL or look around the Contemporary (since we've never actually been inside that hotel) and then head into the MK at 4 pm. Then, MNSSHP! I need to do more research about the party this year and figure out what we want to do...that'll be a separate post. :)

Saturday, August 17th
The plan is to sleep in; we'll see how late we actually end up sleeping in, cause sleeping in at Disney is not really a thing, at least for me. :) We're thinking about ubering over to POFQ to get beignets for breakfast, and then take the boat down to Disney Springs. We'll spend most of the morning/early afternoon at Disney Springs. Gotta go to World of Disney and Amorette's and the Ganachery and Uniqlo and get rice krispie treats at Goofy's candy shop! Those rice krispie treats...I dream about those. Anyways.
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The only plan I have next is an early dinner (4 pm if I can snag an ADR...come on, pixie dust!) at Storybook Dining at Artist Point. Trevor needs to meet Grumpy, and I want to try that gnocchi again (it was SO GOOD).
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It'll have to be a quick dinner though, 'cause we want to hustle over to Hollywood Studios. Trevor bought an "after-5 pm" ticket, so we'll hustle there to ride Star Tours and see what Toy Story land rides the fastpass gods bless us with. We'll probably stay for the fireworks too. But the night doesn't end there! After the fireworks, I'm determined to make it to Trader Sams over at the Poly. I've been trying to get over there for several trips and just haven't made it, but gonna try one more time. :) Late nights? Psh, no worries. :)

Sunday, August 18th
Trevor's flight is at 6:20am, so it's gonna be an EARLY Magical Express pick up for him. I plan to groggily and sleepily kiss him goodbye and continue sleeping...
:)

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LOL I'm so mean... :)

I'm going to head to Hollywood Studios in the morning/early afternoon to ride Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster ('cause Trevor won't ride them and I don't want to waste time riding them solo when he's only with me for a few hours the night before) then head over to the Magic Kingdom for the afternoon and evening, 'cause I want to see Happily Ever After. Also MK is my favorite park. Probably going to play Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, 'cause I'm a nerd that way. :)

I'm also trying to get a Be Our Guest lunch ADR, but if I can't get that I may just do lunch at the Plaza. I like their strawberry salad. :) Dinner? No idea yet...any recommendations for good quick service?

Monday, August 19th
Animal Kingdom I go! They have extra magic hours...I may try to ropedrop Flight of Passage, since obviously those fastpasses are long gone. Anyone ropedropped this ride recently? Any tips I should know about? I'm planning to stay there all morning and most of the early afternoon, and grab lunch at Satuli Canteen. I'll head over to Hollywood Studios in the early afternoon so I can be prepped and ready for my STAR WARS Galaxy's Edge preview slot at 5 pm!!
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I got a slot for the Millenium Falcon ride + Oga's Cantina, so I'm super excited. I'm hoping it won't be too crowded, since some people were saying that for the Pandora AP previews they weren't kicking people out and they think it may be the same for these previews. That would be a bummer; I booked the 5-9 pm slot because it was the last slot of the night and wouldn't overlap with another slot for the last two hours and I wanted to see it at night, but even if they don't kick people out I'm sure it will be great. :) YAY!

Tuesday, August 20th
I'm hoping Magic Kingdom crowds will be super low today since it's a MNSSHP day, so I plan to spend most of the day here until they close the park for MNSSHP. Once they close the park, I'll head over Epcot to catch Illuminations and take advantage of the evening extra magic hours. (Yes I know I'm not spending a lot of time at Epcot but there's no festival running...it's not really my favorite park so...*shrugs*)
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May run over to the Boardwalk afterwards, get some ice cream at Ample Hills...who knows. I can do whatever I want!!! :)

Wednesday August 21st
To everyone's shock and surprise, Magic Kingdom again! I may not stay here the whole day, may head over to Animal Kingdom to see Tree of Life Awakenings and hang in Pandora at night. But MK does have extra magic hours from 10 to midnight so......not sure. Who knows what I'll do! I can do whatever I want!
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Thursday, August 22nd
Animal Kingdom in the morning and early afternoon, then back to All Star Music for a 3 pm Magical Express (Tragical Express) pickup for a 5:55 flight out of Orlando. I land back in DC at 10:10 pm, but I only have a 40 minute layover so we'll see how that goes... :)

So yea, that's the tentative trip plan! I booked my fastpasses and of course didn't get a bunch of the headliners, so me and the app will be best friends for a while! But as a singleton, I feel hopeful about my chances of scoring day-of fastpasses for headliners like Slinky and Flight of Passage. Wish me luck! And if you have any advice for places to eat or things to do as a solo traveller, send them my way!
 
Your plans sound great! How nice that Trevor is able to join you for a portion of the fun!

I found it easier to book same-day ADRs for one person than I expected, so perhaps that will help! I'm a fan of the Greek salad at Cosmic Ray's and many seem to like the waffles at Sleepy Hollow. If you score a BOG lunch ADR perhaps you could eat at the Plaza for dinner and kill two birds with one stone!
 
How cool is that, Trevor joining you for a couple of days. The best of both worlds...a couple days with your honey, then more days on your own. We also like Sleepy Hollow in MK. Their fresh fruit waffle sandwich with chocolate-hazelnut spread is pretty good and their churro ice cream sandwich is delicious! We like the candied bacon skewer and the sweet and spicy chicken skewer at Westward Ho. Our last trip we ended up at Tortuga Tavern and had the Ropa Vieja, shredded beef over rice, which was surprisingly good, and a brisket sandwich. Both had nice flavor.
Oh and the little cart across from the Tiki Room. I don't know if it has a name, I can't find one. They have the best cheeseburger spring rolls and pizza rolls,
Housemade Spring Rolls

we went back for these a few times! Nice snack for sure. And then afterward, your favorite treat from Aloha Aisle or Sunshine Terrace. My fave is the citrus swirl.
I like the salad at The Plaza too. Our last trip, we did breakfast there. They have a fried green tomato benedict that is delicious. I wish we would have went back a second time. That restaurant is so cute and the staff is great!
Oh my, now I'm drooling thinking about all the yummy food to be had at DW.
Enjoy your trip! I can't wait to hear all the fun you are going to have in a couple weeks!
 

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