Disneyland is still closed so it's a road trip to WDW! (May-June 2021 PTR)

[VandVsmama]

It appears that I'm gathering a collection of umbrellas for this trip. Here's the inventory I found last weekend:



I think it's starting to become a problem. LOL! The 2nd one from the top is the most recent addition. That's going to be DH's. On this trip, I'm not carrying 2 umbrellas and 4 ponchos. If you want a poncho, you carry it yourself. If you want an umbrella, you carry it yourself. That bigger silver one is the UV umbrella. The other 3 are regular travel umbrellas.

In addition, I have this in my bag of tricks...


Purchased it 3 years ago before our 2018 summer trip to WDW. This was my portable air conditioning. Got it from Cost Plus Imports for $3-3.50. Each of the kids has one of these, too. That was some of the best $10 I spent prepping for that trip!

 

[VandVsmama]

Wednesday June 2:
This day will be a HS day! It'll be our kids' first ever chance to see Star Wars Galaxy's Edge! ODD & YDD are SO SUPER DUPER EXCITED about this. The general plan right now for this day is...

Step 1:
Get up super early, shower, and go outside somewhere with decent cell reception before 7:00 am to get a ROTR boarding group.

Step 2:
Wake the husband up. Tell him that we WILL leave him behind if he insists on sleeping in.

Step 3:
Submit a breakfast mobile order for the Everything Pop food court. Actually, this will probably be at the beginning of Step 1.

Step 4:
Eat breakfast, then get in line at the Skyliner. Take Skyliner to HS.

Step 5:
Eat lunch at Docking Bay 7.

Step 6:
Hopefully, have an Oga's Cantina reservation for some time on this day. Preferably in morning or later in evening since we want to have a hotel break during the hottest part of the day.

Step 7:
Lightsaber build appointment since both of the kids want to build a lightsaber. Take a family photo in front of the Millennium Falcon with the lightsabers...preferably in the evening when it starts to get dark out. So maybe we should do the lightsaber build late in the day?

No idea yet whether we'll do QS for dinner or an ADR for dinner! This is YDD's actual birthday, so she'll get to pick.

 

[VandVsmama]

Thursday 6/3:
This will be a MK day! Breakfast will be mobile order at the Pop Century food court, then get on the bus to MK. I'm assuming that MK will probably open at 9:00 am, so we will want to be in line for the bus around 7:30, since the parks are tending to open 45 minutes before the regular park opening right now.

Not sure if we'll head to 7DMT or BTMRR first! DH & I hope that the People Mover is operational by the time we get there in June.

Lunch will be an ADR at Whispering Canyon at Wilderness Lodge. I just KNOW that DH & the kids will like the food there. Plus, it's all you can eat, so if anybody is starving, then can chow down! A side benefit is taking the boat there from MK. It's so relaxing!

After lunch, we'll boat back to MK and probably get on a bus back to Pop Century so we can chill out, rest, and swim in the hottest part of the day. Then we'll spend the evening back at MK. I have no idea yet where to have dinner!

 

[VandVsmama]

DH & I have both been telecommuting since the pandemic started. Today, we grabbed some take out for lunch (Jersey Mike's! Love their sandwiches) and on the way back, DH commented about how lucky I am that I have a husband who is willing to go to WDW on 2 vacations in a row.

This made me laugh. I asked, "Let me guess. Did somebody at work give you a hard time for going to Disney World on vacation again?"

YES, THEY DID!

Then...the really funny part...DH said, "I told them that I'm getting something out of it, too. I get a cross country road trip and my kids are forced to be in the car with us the entire time."

This spawned an interesting side topic in the conversation - how come whenever people go to the same place on vacation every year and it's NOT a Disney destination, NOBODY CARES and NOBODY makes comments about it? DH said, "Because it's kind of weird and people think that WDW and DL is just for kids."

Well, of course, those people are all wrong. There's so much to do at WDW that does NOT involve a theme park.

1 of DH's coworkers goes camping every year. My BIL & SIL go camping every year. Nobody ever says to them, "You're going camping AGAIN? Aren't you BORED with that? Don't you want to do something different?"

Some people love beach vacations - Hawaii, Caribbean, whatever. Nobody says to them, "You're going to Hawaii AGAIN? Don't you get bored of that?"

Other people are into winter ski trips. Nobody ever says to them, "You're going skiing AGAIN? Don't you ever get bored of that?"

Cruises? Same thing. Nobody ever says, "Oh brother, you're going on another cruise?"

Going to a "cabin on the lake?" Same thing.
Road trip? Same thing.
Taking your boat out on the lake? Same thing.
Hunting or fishing trip? Same thing.

You know what people say to all of them? "Great! Hope you have a wonderful time!"

One thing I really love about WDW is that there's such a wide range of things to do that it's almost impossible to get bored. You could not even set foot in a theme park and still have a great time. There's a TON of different restaurants to try...literally dozens and dozens of them. Throw in the various Epcot festivals throughout the year with different musical entertainment and you can have a different trip every time.

I have a couple of friends who are "Disney people." They "get it." As for everybody else? I don't think they'll ever quite understand and I'm ok if they think we're a little nutty.

 

[VandVsmama]

Ok, back to trip planning!

FRIDAY 6/4:
On our June 2018 trip to WDW, we made the mistake of doing 3 park days in a row before we took a day off. That was not a good idea! The heat sucked out a lot of our energy. Should have done 2 park days and then a day off.

So that's what we're doing this time instead!

The agenda for this day will involve sleeping in and NO breakfast ADRs anywhere. YDD has asked to go to...



Yes, we are going to go horseback riding! YDD loves horses. And due to costs (lessons where we live cost an arm and a leg), YDD hardly ever gets to go horseback riding. This will be a nice treat.

Due to warm weather, I think it would be ideal to do the ride in the morning, but we'll look into booking it when we get a little closer to our trip dates.

I think it will make sense to have lunch at P&J's Southern Take Out at Fort Wilderness.

YDD definitely wants some down time on this day, so we will all need an afternoon break at the hotel so we can swim and nap. Our family just has a much better time when we are not go-go-go'ing all day long from park open to close.

Late afternoon - I think we'll head over to Epcot. We have a park reservation for Epcot for this day. But Epcot is VERY hot in June! Part of the problem, I think, is that there's not a whole lot of shade in Epcot AND there's a lot of concrete. So...now that I think about it, we should probably plan on getting to Epcot in early evening. Hm, ok, then we'll start at Biergarten for dinner.

When DH & I went to Biergarten for a late lunch on our January trip earlier this year, the meal took almost an hour and a half. We took our time!

At the moment, park hours at Epcot that day are 11 am - 7 pm, but I bet that they extend the close time to 8 or 9 pm since it'll be on a Friday.

The new ride in France won't be open for this trip, so that's a bit of a bummer, but there will still be plenty of other things for us to go on instead.

Instead of Biergarten, I also considered having us eat at all of the different food booths, but my kids (turning 13 on the trip and soon to be 15) will get very frustrated with that after the 2nd booth and will whine about "Can we go on a RIDE now?!"

In terms of attractions/rides, we won't have time to do much, but here's what I'm thinking so far:

• Frozen (kids have never been on it) - maybe get in the queue just before park close?
• focus on Future World...
• Spaceship Earth - DH loves this and calls it "the big silver ball ride"
• Living with the Land - kids have not been on this DH really enjoyed
• Test Track - depends on ride wait time, though.

Honestly, if they extended Epcot's hours to 8 pm, that would be great. To 9 pm would be even better.

Other dinner options I've been thinking about at Epcot for this day are:

• Chefs de France - not enough options that YDD would like
• Via Napoli - the kids LOVED the pizza here 2 yr ago, but there's pretty much only salad that DH could have. Ok, I'm a bit wrong...he'd also like 2 of their appetizers (mozzarella caprese and the prosciutto e melone).
• Regal Eagle BBQ - since we'll be eating at P&J's Southern Take Out for lunch, it doesn't make sense to eat at Regal Eagle for dinner since the food is almost exactly the same.
• Yorkshire County Fish Shop - this is a solid contender. It's QS and all of the tables are outside (which is a negative given the hot weather). But we all like fish & chips a lot.
• Le Cellier in Canada pavilion - too expensive

Biergarten is expensive at $46/person, but the plus side of this is that it's all-you-can-eat and there's a wide range of things here that my kids will enjoy.

 

[VandVsmama]

Saturday 6/5:
This is another HS day! It'll be similar, yet different, to our 1st HS day. General plan for today goes like this:

• 7:00 am - get a ROTR boarding group
• mobile order breakfast at Pop Century food court
• Skyliner to HS with the goal being to be there BEFORE park opening
• lunch at either Sci Fi Dine In or 50's Prime Time Cafe. Right now, I'm leaning more towards Sci Fi since DH & the kids will get such a kick out of it. Plus, eating at TS for lunch will give us some time in A/C out of the heat.
• droid building reservation
• afternoon hotel break
• dinner at Primo Piatto at the Riviera or Docking Bay 7. I could see us eating dinner at Docking Bay 7 and then getting gelato for dessert at the Riviera on our way back to Pop Century after HS closes for the night.

Rides/attractions for today will be:

• Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway
• Toy Story Mania
• Slinky Dog Dash
• Alien Swirling Saucers
• Star Tours
• Muppets 3D
• Millennium Falcon
• if we're lucky, ROTR
• time filler - the Mickey Mouse short
• time filler - One Man's Dream
• if I'm feeling adventurous (and willing to go on roller coaster that goes upside down) - Rock N Roller Coaster. DH & the kids will say no to this, so I'd be doing it solo.

 

[VandVsmama]

Happy Friday everyone! I thought this morning was the start of my 60 day ADR window...but no! It appears that it starts tomorrow.

How are things looking in terms of the park pass/park reservation situation for our dates? Here's what the WDW website says today on that:



What if you just have theme park tickets and aren't staying on site?


And here's what it looks like if you've got an Annual Pass:


We're going to be in the parks from 6/2 - 6/6 and the only park which is 'sold out' for park passes for on site hotel guests is HS. So I think we're going to be ok in terms of overall crowd levels. I expect more people than when DH & I went to WDW in January, of course.

We still have just the 1-park-per-day tickets. I don't see us changing that. And we're skipping AK entirely this trip...AK is just way too hot in the summer.

We're hitting up MK & HS twice on this trip and 1 partial day at Epcot...all of which are rated at 4's or 5's on Touring Plans' website.

 

[VandVsmama]

Well, it appears that I was wrong! 60-day ADR day is NOT tomorrow, it's today! But when I logged in earlier, it wouldn't let me select anything after 5/31. It looks like I needed to do online check in first? After I did that, I was able to search for ADRs for our dates (6/1 - 6/7).

I was NOT able to get an Oga's Cantina reservation. That's disappointing. The kids were really looking forward to that. But those ADRs are super hard to come by. I'll just keep checking every day and maybe we will luck out.

I was also not able to get an ADR for Sci Fi Dine In for either of our HS days...for ANY time slot on either day. Dang it! I'll keep checking for that, too.

I also tried looking for a Beaches & Cream ADR but no luck there either.

AND I also struck out with my attempt to get a dinner ADR at Homecomin' for dinner on 6/1.

So what WAS I able to get? Here's the list:

• Wed 6/2 - 10:25 am light saber build at Savi's Workshop
• Wed 6/2 - 11:35 am lunch at Hollywood Brown Derby
• Thurs 6/3 - 12:35 pm lunch at Whispering Canyon at Wilderness Lodge
• Fri 6/4 - 5:25 pm dinner at Biergarten in Epcot
• Sat 6/5 - 11:00 am appointment for the kids at the Droid workshop
• Sat 6/5 - 12:00 pm lunch at 50's Prime Time Cafe
• Sun 6/6 - 7:45 am breakfast at Whispering Canyon at Wilderness Lodge. I thought about doing Chef Mickey's, but that's like twice the cost and by this point in the trip, DH will be sick of eating the OD'd on the Everything Pop breakfasts.
• Sun 6/6 - 7:20 pm dinner at The Wave at CR. This is after MK park close, but just you watch...WDW will end up extending the park hours to 8 pm or something like that.
• 
  
• Sat
• Sat
• Fri
• Th

 

[AZMermaid]

Hi! Loving your plans. We are in Scottsdale. The drive there, fly home idea is a good one. I suggested driving to Galveston for a Disney cruise once and got a heck, no from my husband! I agree.... QT is the best!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

We still have just the 1-park-per-day tickets. I don't see us changing that. And we're skipping AK entirely this trip...AK is just way too hot in the summer.

We're hitting up MK & HS twice on this trip and 1 partial day at Epcot...all of which are rated at 4's or 5's on Touring Plans' website.

No Animal Kingdom?!

That's my favorite park! I agree though - it's hot as blazes in the summer, and there's very little in the way of relief in indoor attractions.


Bummer on the ADRs you weren't able to get. It's crazy how Beaches & Cream is such a hard-to-get reservation. My family stayed at the Yacht & Beach Club three times while I was growing up, and we used to do walk-up dining the evening we arrived and it was our tradition. It's become increasingly difficult to maintain this tradition in recent years. The secret is obviously out with this one.

 

[VandVsmama]

No Animal Kingdom?!

That's my favorite park! I agree though - it's hot as blazes in the summer, and there's very little in the way of relief in indoor attractions.


Bummer on the ADRs you weren't able to get. It's crazy how Beaches & Cream is such a hard-to-get reservation. My family stayed at the Yacht & Beach Club three times while I was growing up, and we used to do walk-up dining the evening we arrived and it was our tradition. It's become increasingly difficult to maintain this tradition in recent years. The secret is obviously out with this one.

We went to AK on our family trip 3 yr ago in early June and made it until noon and then had to leave because we all felt very physically unwell from the intense heat. YDD was probably on the verge of heat stroke or heat exhaustion. No way are we doing that again.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

We went to AK on our family trip 3 yr ago in early June and made it until noon and then had to leave because we all felt very physically unwell from the intense heat. YDD was probably on the verge of heat stroke or heat exhaustion. No way are we doing that again.

That's awful!

I have to be VERY careful not to get dehydrated there.

One trip, the park map colors melted onto my arm - at the 9am park opening.

 

[VandVsmama]

HOORAY! WDW announced that guests will soon (i.e., before our trip!) be able to take photos WITHOUT MASKS ON!

So yesterday, I bought Memory Maker for our trip. Told the kids about it. And...YDD said, "Can I still keep my mask on in all the pictures?" Yes, kiddo, you can.

I'm still trying to get a Beaches & Cream or Oga's Cantina reservation. So far, NO DICE!

 

[VandVsmama]

Still trying for Oga's Cantina or Beaches & Cream. Still no ADRs to be had for either of those! That's ok, though. I'm satisfied for now with what we've got.

However, for the road trip portion of our vacation, I purchased tickets online this past week for a tour of Destrehan Plantation near New Orleans. We're all looking forward to seeing this.


We My 3 year old flip flops are about to die (translation: 1 of the straps is about to break), so I ordered myself a new pair. Now I'll have time to break them in before the trip! I thought the design on these was kind of cool.


I'm waiting for my other solar umbrella to get delivered later this week. So we'll just be bringing the 2 solar umbrellas with us. All of the other travel umbrellas I have will stay home. And I've decided to also leave the ponchos at home, too. If DH wants to bring his own umbrella or poncho, he can pack it and haul it into the park himself. LOL!

I also ordered 1 of these from Amazon...waiting for delivery of that...


And one of these dorky things...My prediction is that DH will commandeer this. I haven't ever used either of these 2 types of fans before at WDW. Figured we would try one of each and see how we like them, plus supplement with getting a couple of the overpriced battery-operated Disney fans, too.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

I love my little personal fans at WDW in the summer! I always pack some extra batteries for it.

I have seen people in the parks wearing the kind that goes around your neck.

 

[VandVsmama]

I just read on https://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-world/dining/mobile-order-service.htm that 3 QS restaurants have reopened at MK - Sleepy Hollow, Friar's Nook, and Sunshine Tree Terrace.

It looks like Sunshine Tree Terrace has pot stickers, which will make DH & ODD happy. Plus, they have soft serve ice cream, which YDD will enjoy.

Friar's Nook has mostly stuff that isn't our speed. An awful lot of macaroni and cheese. The hot dog is probably the only thing that would float our boat there.

And Sleepy Hollow - I would swear that this was open when we went in January, but maybe I'm wrong? Anyway, looks like it's mostly waffle sandwich stuff, which none of us care for. We are traditionalists and prefer our waffles with maple syrup. The corn dogs here are inedible compared to the Little Red Wagon ones at Disneyland, so it's a hard pass for Sleepy Hollow for us!

I also read at https://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories/select-self-serve-beverage-stations-reopen-at-disney-world/ that they've started to make the drink refill stations to be self-serve again. YAY! A little more normalcy returning to WDW. When we went in January, sometimes the line up could get a little long of people waiting to get drink refills. It'll be nice to be able to do this ourselves again.

** Edited to add **
DH has declared that he does like the neck fan thing and he doesn't care if people think it looks dumb. He's all about the comfort when we go to WDW!

 

[kclark9830]

Just found you here! We will be there June 6-12, at Movies.

I think I'm going to pick up one or two of the neck fans, at least for my kids. I had forgotten about seeing those!

 

[VandVsmama]

Just found you here! We will be there June 6-12, at Movies.

I think I'm going to pick up one or two of the neck fans, at least for my kids. I had forgotten about seeing those!

We were originally going to stay at ASMovies, but switch at DH's request. The lower price tag at Movies was definitely attractive, along with the fact that you won't have to share buses with any of the other All Stars resorts since, I think anyway, none of the other 2 are open right now. Hope you have an awesome time!

 

[VandVsmama]

More trip prep is underway!

I bought a 2nd neck fan yesterday, ordered off of Amazon. It should arrive here later this week. Also ordered ODD & YDD's magic bands. Just some simple plain colored ones for $5 each through our WDW package on the WDW website.

Later this week, I'm going to call Magical Express to book our bus trip to the airport for the end of our stay. Still need to make the hotel reservations for the road trip portion of our vacation. Prices are still good, so we have time for that.

Still no luck on Oga's Cantina or Sci Fi Dine In Theater. Boo!

However, the evening we're going to be at Epcot has had the park hours extended from 9 pm to 10 pm! Great news! Epcot is insanely hot during day light hours at that time of year.

In other news, I've started the transformation of our guest bathroom to an Enchanted Tiki Room theme. Ordered this shower curtain on Friday:


I also want to buy one of these off of Etsy to hang on the wall in the bathroom:


And I'm also considering this...


And then there's also this blueprint of the actual original attraction at Disneyland. This is definitely going in the bathroom:

 

[VandVsmama]

Southwest Airlines sent me an email this morning. They changed our flight home. Boo! It WAS supposed to be leaving Orlando at 9:40 am...a direct flight! But now the flight leaves at 7:30 am.

That means that we'd have to be getting on the Magical Express at 4:30 am. Which means getting the kids up at probably 3:30 am. No. Forget it. So I changed it to a more reasonable hour.

We are now leaving at 1:35 pm, which means a probable DME pick up around 10:30 am. MUCH better. We can sleep in a little bit, have breakfast, then get on the Tragical Express to the airport.

We'll be changing planes in Dallas. That's ok. The Dallas --> PHX flight lands around 4:30 pm, which is fine.

I added a request on Touring Plans' ADR finder for a Chef Mickey's breakfast reservation. Crossing my fingers for that, but no hopes there. I tried looking at Grand Floridian Cafe, but even that has nothing.

I think that WDW is going to be pretty busy (comparatively speaking) when we are there because there are, like, NO ADRs to be had anywhere now. And if you look at open hotel options for our dates, there's almost nothing available. I'm glad that I was able to get the ADRs that I did!