EAST, WEST, WHICH "HOME'S" BEST? A DL and WDW Trip--NEW 10/23/17--I'm back!! AK morning

mousehappync

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 17, 2013
Welcome! I'm getting so excited about our upcoming trips that I thought a pre-trip report might help me blow off a little Disney steam! We are frequent WDW visitors, but have never been to Disneyland (or to California at all, for that matter!) I hope you'll read along as I plan out three days in Disneyland (and five more in the San Diego area!) and a GLORIOUS eight days at WDW in January, with a pretty epic (and unintentional!) triple split stay (Poly, Bay Lake Towers and Yacht Club!)

Who are we?image.jpeg
We are these people! (At least, we were these people. This picture is from 2014! Family shots are not our strong suit.)

I'm Melissa, the Disney-Planner-In-Chief, ADR-spread-sheet-loving, resort-hopping, trip-justifying, Disney Math Expert in our family. When I'm not planning a Disney trip, I own an antiques business, run the huge vegetable garden at my kids' school and volunteer a lot in our community. image.jpeg

Here's my husband-- he's one of those people who claims he doesn't love Disney, but he has A LOT of fun once he's actually there. I wish we had audio for this picture-- it was absolutely hilarious. Spoiler Alert-- he wasn't the King of Fantasyland that day!image.jpeg

And our boys! They've grown up on Disney, and they love to help me plan. They enjoy EVERYTHING-- except meeting characters! I'd give them cute little nicknames to protect their identity on the interwebs, but-- we're Southern. I monogram everything. And Disney is one of the few places they will still let me indulge matched, monogrammed outfits. So-- meet Grady (almost 10) and John-Harper (almost 8). That's a double name, for you folks above the Mason Dixon, but he mostly goes by JH. They like fast rides, Duffy the bear, Breakfast Dessert (which is a thing at Disney) hotel pools, and the special effects at Trader Sam's, pretty much in that order. And pin collecting--not so much trading.
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That's the who, now for the Where and Why!

Where:
Disneyland (and So Cal) In November. Staying at the Grand Californian with three-day Park Hoppers and not one, single ADR. (The WDW planning freak inside me just died a little bit inside!) We are going on very low-crowd days, and are planning to make some last minute reservations at Carnation Cafe and maybe a couple others, but we decided to skip dining packages, character meals and signature dining this trip, since it will just be me and the boys (husband has a conference), so we are mostly winging it. We are spending the rest of our trip at the Coranado in San Diego, which I am VERY excited about!

WDW: January, 2017. Triple split stay-- arrival night at the Poly, two nights in a BLT Studio (that I sort-of accidently rented on points) and four nights at the Yacht Club. We are pretty equal lovers of the Poly and the Beach Club, and didn't particularly love our one YC experience, but the discounts this year for BC were just not that great, so YC it is! Soooooo many ADR's. So many. No dining plan, so we will eat my favorite way-- multiple shared apps/small plates/salads at as many restaurants as we can fit in! Eight-day Park Hoppers.

Why? Because we love Disney! Why else?!

I hope you'll read along!

CHAPTER LINKS
OUR DISNEY HISTORY, Part 1
 
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Before we get started PTR-ing, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of our past trips. We came to Disney late-- my parents never took me as a child, and it just wasn't on our radar. My husband has a conference every January in Orlando, so it seemed like a fun idea to take the kids "just once." We started off with four-day tickets, no hoppers, and stayed at the wilderness Lodge. I say "started off"-- because we pretty quickly added two park days AND Hoppers-- we were having the BEST time! The boys were almost five and just-turned 3 on that trip. They look SO little!

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Back when they still liked meeting characters-- they are "too old, moooom" now. Seriously?! This was our first morning in the MK, ever!

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They are so hopeful... Every single trip...

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We had SUCH a good time I was looking for any excuse to return. I think this is when I discovered you fine people, and started getting REALLLLY into the planning part. And then I discovered this magical thing called "free dining." And realized I could cheaply take one of my children for a week, feed and entertain them (and ME-- who are we kidding?!) for not a ton of money. And so the Kindergarten Solo Trip was born! I took Grady and we spent five days at Pop with the regular dining plan. We had a blast!image.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpeg
Fireworks from New Fantasyland, which was open a couple of times during that visit. This is still one of my favorite places to watch Wishes!

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This is a theme every trip... Nobody has ever pulled it out, though!

Then January 2013 rolled back around, and we went back as a family. My mom joined us for a few days--I'm not sure we won her over to Disney! This trip we spent five nights at the Poly, and two more at the newly opened Art of Annimation in a Little Mermaid room. We loved the convenience of the Poly, but didn't really fall in love with it (that came later-- by 2015 we were total converts! That entire trip was under a bit of a cloud-- the night before we left the shop that handles all my refinishing burned to the ground, with a 40-foot box truck of my inventory that had just been delivered in it. Then my luggage got lost on the way there, and took three days to show up. It wasn't our best trip by a long shot, although there were some good moments. It was JH's first trip at 40", and we so enjoyed the freedom of no baby-swapping!

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If ever a family needed a do-over trip, it was us. And we had something big to celebrate-- after a very long decade of school and work, my husband made partner at his law firm in the fall of 2013. I decided the rest of the family needed a prize for surviving that decade:dancer:so another trip was in order! This trip we stayed at POR and had Free Dining, which was awesome. AND-- we upgraded to AP's! Now this party was REALLY getting started:jumping1:. This trip was AMAZING. We crossed so many things off our Disney bucket list, hit Food & Wine for the first time, got to test drive the Magic Band system (while still using paper FP!) and had so many great meals (we also had a TiW card this trip, which we used at all the extra meals we booked on top of our dining plan meals. We also attended our first MNSSHP, dressed as the gang from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

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We had the best towel animals ever at POR!!

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Even though this trip was amazing, we were just getting started on the fun. We ended up spending35 days in Disney in 2013-14! We did it ALL-- parties, tours, F&W, Star Wars weekend, so. Much. Disney. Food.
 
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THE YEAR OF AP's!!!!pixiedust::cool1: We came back in January 2014 with our new AP's-- and AP room discounts! First Trip of 2014--Triple split stay--2 nights at the BC, three at the Contemporary and two more at a Wilderness Lodge. I said I would never do a triple split again.... Oops. We will be back at in in Jauary with Poly/BLT/YC. This year it was SO COLD-- we hadn't brought winter coats, and we really could have used them! And I have NO pictures saved from this trip! I'm not a great picture-taker to begin with, and I was by myself for a lot of this trip, since my husband was at his conference. I tend to use FB as my baby book, and was getting tired of the "you went AGAIN?!" comments, so I didn't post any when we got back. And somehow they got deleted, so, no pictures.

Our next trip was--maybe?-- our best trip ever. We spent 10 days at Disney in early June. It was REALLY hot, but otherwise so much fun.
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We stayed at the Pop for a couple of nights, which the boys love. We love the convenience of the Epcot area resorts, though, and got a great AP rate, so the next 8 nights were at the YC and BC. Our room at the YC had some massive air conditioner leak-- the carpet was soggy all the way to the beds, and when I asked if they had a different room, they said we could move to the BC. The room category would be different (we'd booked a garden view)-- were we ok with that? Well... Since this was our view, um, yeah? We were right over the back door, and this view was just SO amazing. Nice :tink:there, Disney!

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On this trip, we were all about the Star Wars Weekend fun--JH is a huge SW fan, and this was his idea of heaven. Waiting to meet Darth Vader... He was a little nervous.

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Mom standing with you helps! Also-- not actually standing next to Darth Vader helps.
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One of my favorite pictures, ever.image.jpeg


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Every. Single. Trip.

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We had a friend who,was also at Disney, celebrating a big birthday. They had a dessert party on the little terrace below England in the World Showcase, and we got these very nifty 3-D type glasses that made the fireworks into Mickey heads. I kept them and they now live in our "Disney box" (along with pins, ponchos, autograph books, etc... I just pull the box out of storage for each trip, and everything we need is right there!). I was able to take a picture through the lens of the glasses-- Illuminations Mickey-head-style!image.jpeg

E had one more trip on those AP's left.... Stay tuned!
 

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Trip number four of our AP's! This time it was JH's turn for a Kindergarten Solo Trip, so we were off for a MUCH expanded version of Grady's trip. Poor guy-- he got five days at Pop, JH got 3 nights at Pop and seven nights at BC. I just really, really love BC-- it's so cheerful, and Stormalong Bay is so much fun. This trip we went to MNSSHP and dressed as Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. I can't find any pictured of my costume, but I had so much fun putting these together. I was able to find pieces at thrift stores that would work, and I cut them down and altered them to fit us and look like the characters. JH was so excited to meet Rapunzel--check out his smolder.:love:

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First ride on Space Mountain... He swears he loves it.... I dunno....

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Pre-park opening breakfast-- with construction.

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Lots of good eats this trip. The No Way, Jose is my absolute favorite. We barely made a dent in it, though!

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And... Home! Bye-bye, AP's, it was nice knowing you...

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Wrapping up the recaps soon-- time to get to the planning!
 
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Ok-- this trip down memory lane was fun, but I'm getting antsy to start talking about our upcoming DL trip (less than a month to go!) and our January WDW trip-- this one is shaping up to be EPIC! I'm going to go through a couple more past trips, then on to the fun stuff!


After our AP's expired, we decided to take a little break from Disney. In Jan 2015 we surprised the boys with a trip to Universal to visit Harry Potter. The Wizarding World stuff is amazing, but the entire experience, compared to Disney, just wasn't for us. The 3-D rides made everybody so sick, and I missed how Disney does such a great job of really isolating each experience-- the theming park-wide is just SO much better. But.... We really had a great time. I'd say it's a great place to spend a day, maybe two, but that's enough for us. We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel-- it was fine. But we missed Disney so much that we actually decided to check out a day early, and spend the night at the Pop (after an Ohana dinner and Wishes!) to get our fix.:rotfl2:

obligatory kid pics:

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This was the highlight of Grady's trip (maybe his life?!) He found an egg that was "hatching" at the Jurassic Park center, and he got to "adopt" the baby Veloceraptor. He still-- even at almost 10-- thinks this is a 100% real thing that happened to him. He named her after our cat. Meet "Annie" the Veloceraptor.

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In 2015 we did a huge house renovation, and we were supposed to skip Disney entirely that year while we recovered (emotionally and financially-- gutting your downstairs while you live in the house is not for the faint of heart... Or wallet!). But....that darn Free Dining. It's just so appealing. I booked a "budget" trip-- 5 nights at CBR with Free Dining. Which somehow ended up being 2 nights in a studio at the Poly and 6 nights at the BC. Which did, in fact, not save us any money at all. And this was the year of those dumb dining apps, so ADR's were impossible to find, and the service at the BC was just... Not great. It was weird, because we've never had anything less than stellar service, but we were placed in a room that had one king bed and a foldout couch and looked straight into the roof/bus lane. Not a huge deal (except the bed part-- that was kind of a pain) but I'd paid for a water view-- and with the insane rack rate nightly rate, I actually expected to not look at a roof. We asked to be moved to a water view, which took THREE separate room switches (we kept getting moved to standard views, and it took THREE nights before that had availability in the category we booked.) I think if we hadn't paid full price for the room, I might have worried less, but it really bugged me. The price difference was not insubstantial, and the hassle of changing rooms wasn't, either. We had fun, but I think we were all ready for a break from Disney after that...
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Our (really lovely, but LOUD as it opened directly over the front desk, and really crowded once we opened the sofa bed) initial room.

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After the third attempt to get into the correct room, I was ready to sic the Pirates on thempirate:

But we ended up doing our best to relax and have fun. Because, Disney, right?! image.jpeg
 
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So, after that trip, I questioned our Disney return, really for the first time, ever. That trip ended up being really expensive; I'm usually pretty budget conscious when I book our trips. I plan around less expensive seasons, we do a lot of meal sharing, and I search for great deals and stack discounts whenever possible to make the trips as affordable as possible. This was, by far, our most expensive trip, and it just didn't live up to our past trips, both in value and in service and experiences.

So-- we decided this year would be about the "real world" (how depressing is that?!) starting off with a pretty amazing 12-day Spring Break road trip to the Florida Keys. We stayed with family for several days on the way down (my dad lives in Sarasota) and visited Homasassa state park (thumbs down! The animal enclosures were pretty sad) and the Dali Museum in St. Pete (HUGE thumbs up! They even had a "Dali and Disney" exhibit up about Walt and Dali's friendship and collaborations-- it was amazing. This museum is just SO well done. I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend it if you are in the area! image.jpegimage.jpeg

If you are in St. Pete, a visit to Ft. DeSoto State Park is a must. My East Coast boys dipped their toes into the Gulf (where I grew up-- so much more comfortable for worrywart moms than the rough Atlantic, where I'm always afraid they'll get swept into an undertow or eaten by a shark!

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At Ft. DeSoto park in St. Pete
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Then it was on the the Keys! OMG-- the Keys were amazing. We stayed in Marathon, and visited Key West and Baha'i Honda, fed the tarpons, petted Hemingway cats, kayaked the mangroves, and ATE. Yum. I cannot wait to go back someday!

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Feeding the tarpon in Key Largo.

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At Baha'i Honda State Park-- one of the only natural beaches in the Keys.

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Hemingway cat! We really loved the Hemingway house tour. I didn't enjoy the touristy parts of Key West at all, but I loved roaming the quieter neighborhoods, getting Cuban food, and just soaking in the atmosphere.

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Kayaking the mangroves... Which was much harder than I expected. Negotiating two-person kayak through those teeny little mangrove tunnels is tricky!

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Keys food! We ate SO well this trip! This was a conch fritter at Alabama Jack's, which we bareLy made a dent in. Conch fritters at our favorite restaurant at the NC coast are more like hush puppies-- this was a funnel cake!
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But the Keys aren't Disney, so you may be wondering why I'm showing you these pics?

Well.....
 
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Surprise! When we left the Keys to head back towards home, we didn't head straight back! I found a"Magical" deal thanks to a lovely Dis-er, and we decided the fun wasn't over yet. The kids LOST IT when we pulled under the sign. I think they really and truly had NO idea. I love surprises! We booked 4 nights at CBR, and planned to do one LONG day at the MK, a day at a Braves Spring Training game, and a day to just bum around Disney doing all the things we don't make time for when we are busy with the parks.

CBR was lovely-- I would not hesitate to stay again. It had an incredibly relaxing feel, perfect for a trip that wasn't all about the parks. This was the tail end of Spring Break, but the worst of the crowds were gone. So, off at EMH at the MK, with plans to stay until Wishes.
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This is where being really well-versed in Disney planning helped SO much. I saved one FP for the Wishes viewing area (RIP-- we really enjoyed that spot!) and we utilized 7 am EMH to really pack it ALL in. We only waited in one line--Splash for 25 minutes-- and we did several rides multiple times. The only ride in the entire park we didn't do was Space Mountain. It. Was. Awesome.
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This was part of the pirate adventure game in Adventureland-- the boys LOVED it. Similar to a Perry mission, but pirate themed.

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You totally knew this pic was coming, right?! Every. Single. Time.

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Hour 14 in the MK... They were SO exhausted. But we had the BEST DAY EVER. Totally worth it (one-day tickets are crazy expensive, especially when you are used to longer trips where the value-per-day seems a little better!)

Then it was time to explore the rest of Disney. We had breakfast at Kona, the headed over for a "free" ride on the monorail, with the intent to bus it over to POFQ for a bengiet snack. Did you know if you show up at the MK bus stops before 10, you just might get picked up by an official Disney MINI-VAN and be given a personally chauffeurs ride wherever you want?! (I was a little nervous about this, but the driver was in costume and there was Disney ID all over the dashboard. ) Once I got over being a little sketched out-- I mean, how cool is THIS?!

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We hit up DTD and got our LEGO fix, then it was on to the Poly for Trader Sam's and Ohana. We really, really fell in love with the Poly during our two nights on our previous trip. I still love the Epcot area for convenience, but the Poly for FUN.

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Pinkies up on your zombie head!

Our last day was supposed to be at Braves Spring Training, but it was POURING. We decided to take a monorail tour to see the Easter eggs at the GF (this was the Friday after Easter)-- they were amazing! Then we headed back to DTD to try and bowl...but the three hour wait at Splitsville was insane! We'd seen all the movies playing at the dine-in, and had some time to kill before dinner.... So, on to the Hanger Bar! I love that we can mix adult fun and kid fun at Disney. This place was so much fun-- we will be back in January, for sure!
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And, on that note, I'm out of pictures in this post, so time to sign off. I'll be back with our DL plans next time...
 

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I so understand you! If I am not planning a Disney trip then my life is not complete. My two boys are a lot older than yours, 23 and soon to be 26. Lucky for me they both still love Disney. My youngest and I bought annual passes to Universal because of our love of Harry Potter. We did not renew them this summer because its just not Disney. I am with you, Universal is great for a day or two (especially the Potter areas) but the over all feel is just not magical. On one week long trip to Universal with just my youngest (who was 22 at the time) he said, "Mom, can't we just go to Disney and the Magic Kingdom for one day". So we did and stayed from open til close. Our last ride was Space Mountain at midnight. It was the best time ever! This past April/May we spent 10 nights at Disney (Fort Wilderness Cabins) and 4 nights at Universal (Cabana Bay) My oldest joined us on this trip. We still didn't get enough time at Disney. So I am in the planning stages of Disneyland. It will be a first for all of us. Looking at the last Saturday of April until the first Saturday of May. Your Disneyland trip will help me plan mine. I know we want to stay at the Disneyland hotel. Other than that, still reading up on everyone's likes and dislikes.
 
I so understand you! If I am not planning a Disney trip then my life is not complete. My two boys are a lot older than yours, 23 and soon to be 26. Lucky for me they both still love Disney. My youngest and I bought annual passes to Universal because of our love of Harry Potter. We did not renew them this summer because its just not Disney. I am with you, Universal is great for a day or two (especially the Potter areas) but the over all feel is just not magical. On one week long trip to Universal with just my youngest (who was 22 at the time) he said, "Mom, can't we just go to Disney and the Magic Kingdom for one day". So we did and stayed from open til close. Our last ride was Space Mountain at midnight. It was the best time ever! This past April/May we spent 10 nights at Disney (Fort Wilderness Cabins) and 4 nights at Universal (Cabana Bay) My oldest joined us on this trip. We still didn't get enough time at Disney. So I am in the planning stages of Disneyland. It will be a first for all of us. Looking at the last Saturday of April until the first Saturday of May. Your Disneyland trip will help me plan mine. I know we want to stay at the Disneyland hotel. Other than that, still reading up on everyone's likes and dislikes.
This warms my heart! I hope our boys still want to travel with us as they get older. Good luck with DL planning--I've read a bunch of trip reports, but I still feel totally out of my depth. It has been so long since I used paper FP, and I'm afraid I won't be very efficient at first. I often plan our WDW days put hourly, which isn't hard because I know how long things take, where everything is, etc. Even studying maps and touring plans, I still feel like we will end up doing a lot of wandering at DL. Our park days are both 2/10 on Touring Plans, so I'm hopeful that that will save us!
 
It's Disneyland time!!! I would love for anybody who has done this trip to chime in with advice. I'm the type of person who likes to REALLY understand something before I lay plans. My favorite word is "efficient"-- I hate wasting time/resources/energy on doing something half-way, so I generally waaaay over-plan in advance. Which is a big part of the appeal of Disney trips, if I'm being honest:ssst:
I hope I get it right... because it's not like WDW, where I can go back easily!

So, plans. We fly out Sunday morning. We are flying Southwest, which in NC flies out of both Raleigh and Charlotte. In Raleigh, though, SW has a dedicated terminal. With its own security line, and a total of about 6 gates. Which is AWESOME. We flew SW up to Boston this summer--our first SW experience in years and years-- and from parking the car to sitting at the gate was 30 minutes-- including security! I had a friend who was in the next terminal over the same day who missed her flight because of a two-hour security line, so this is just SUCH a worthwhile perk. The no assigned seats part kind of stinks, but we were told at every gate (without asking--I'm a "rules girl" and if they say family boarding is 6 and under, I'm not one to ask if we can board early with my 7 year old) that they would much prefer we use family boarding, since our kids are too young to sit with strangers, and even in A group you are not guaranteed that you will find two seats together. We had such a pleasant experience that we plan to use SW any time we can't fly out of our hometown airport, which is just blissfully empty most of the time and our preferred airport.

So, travel day. We arrive in San Diego around 1, after a stop in Denver. We plan to rent a car, and will likely just go to the hotel and hang out for the rest of the day. I'm still figuring our restaurants in San Diego, as well as itinerary. We will be staying at Hotel del Coronado-- look familiar?!

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This is one of the hotels the GF is modeled after! I'm super excited about this stay. The hotel itself looks beautiful, as does the beach area. My aunt has stayed here a few times, and she has told me that the tide pools on Coronado are amazing, so we will hope for beach weather today. We plan to drive somewhere for dinner-- maybe over to La Jolla? I have been looking at Mapquest driving times, and everything looks very doable, although I'm not sure how much they account for traffic. If anybody has specific recommendation, fire away!

My husband will be attending a conference starting Monday afternoon, but we plan to get 7-day passes to Balboa Park, and visit Monday morning as a family, and I'm sure the kids and I will go back some. This sounds like an INCREDIBLE complex-- not really a park, but a collection of museums, gardens, and public spaces. The pictures are breathtaking-- I can't wait to see it in person!

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I think we are skipping the zoo-- I'm not a huge zoo person to begin with, and we also are very lucky to have an INCREDIBLE zoo about 30 minutes from our house. Other than the pandas, there is almost nothing we can't see at home. We also have a science center in our town with a glass-front tiger exhibit (you are literally the thickness of a piece of glass away from the tigers, because they pace the perimeter, which makes me kind of sad.). We can also pet wallabies, see penguins, otters, meerkats, ocelots, gibbons, sharks and other animals right up close. It's kind of made the need to see animals at other places obsolete for us. Especially since it would be nearly $200 for one-day zoo passes!

We will be in San Diego Sunday-Tuesday. My husband is staying through Thursday, but eaaaaarrrrllly Wednesday morning, the kids and I are heading up to Disneyland! The plan is to be on the road by 6:30, hopefully by 6:00, to avoid traffic. Mapquest says its 100 miles and will take 1 hour, 50 minutes. We are currently booked at the HoJo in a bunk bed room. Which looks adorable, plus the bunks mean that getting the kids down alone will be approximately 1 million times easier than if they are sharing a bed. Nobody will kick, cover snatch, Duffy-bear poke, etc.

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I have gone back and forth on this, but at this point, I'm probably keeping this reservation. I have literally NO time planned at the hotel, and even Paradise Pier is double the price. I've consulted some friends here who have stayed both on and off property-- these are folks at WDW who stay DELUXE (i.e.-- 2 br villas, club level, etc)-- at WDW, and both have said that they would use a good neighbor hotel, even after staying at the Grand Californian. This is hard for me-- we stay all over the map at Disney, from the Pop to the Poly, but we ALWAYS stay on property. I'm trying to wrap my head around there not really being a "bubble"-- and that the value for your $450/night room at the GC is not really what it would be at say, the Beach Club. But.... That being said, I really want to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. For those that care about the ways and means of Disney trips, I used the code I found on Mousesavers for the HoJo, and our two-night stay is going to be $340 with tax. Parking is free, which is nice. The plan is to arrive, park, check in, leave luggage in the trunk, and hopefully be over at DL for the 9 am park opening. Wish me luck.:rotfl2:

This is an early entry morning at DCA (9 am) and park hours at DL are 9-9, crowd level 2/10. For planning-- because I'm assuming if you are reading this, you geek out over planning:Pinkbounc--this is how I'm approaching it. (PS-- I have TERRIBLE handwriting)image.jpeg

I used Touring Plans to map out rides with low (10 minutes or less,) medium (10-20 minutes) and high (20 minutes+) waits, then came up with a plan of attack. I'm hoping I remember how to work the paper FP system, and that I'm better in person than I feel planning. As it stands, here is our plan of attack for Day 1 at DL.

Arrive, take a few pictures, pull PP FP. If the line is short (under 10 minutes) we will take the time to ride. This was our first-ever ride at WDW.

Sentimentality Alert ahead....this is, in a nutshell, how someone who jut didn't "get" Disney became, in one fell swoop, someone who counts Disney as one of their most special places. Right before our first-ever trip, when the kids were3&5, my
husband, who is the bedtime reader at our house, had just read Peter Pan to the boys. Grady had also been to a really, really well-done version at a local theater, and the magic of childhood was really fresh in our minds-- and our eyes. I can barely read PP, and CANNOT read Winnie the Pooh, out loud. It just gets so darn dusty in the room.... we are hugely sentimental people about books. Anyway, this book, and all our feelings about it and our own children, got tangled up with the Peter Pan ride at Disney, and it means so, so much to us. This, folks, is the magic of Disney. Walt was able to put all the dreams and hopes I have for my kids into a beautiful package, where going through a 2-minute dark ride, or watching a fireworks show narrated by a cricket, is the very best expression of what I'm trying to do for and give to my children. It's the world is wish for them... In their lives and in their hearts. In short... it's Magic.

So....moving back to our day. After pulling a FP, possibly riding PP, we are heading over to ride Indiana Jones. I'm intentionally not watching any videos-- it's so rare to have something new-to-you when you are a Disney nut, and I want this to be super special. I'm also planning to hit Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise and Pirates early in the morning.

I'm hoping we will have a return time for PP around this time (I'm estimating 10:30-11-ish?) and can ride that now. Then we plan to head over to Tomorrowland, and pull a Space FP if possible. The lines by now should be fairly long, but if not we will ride now. I'm going to check in with the Jedi Training Academy times, and see if there is anything left, although this is not a huge priority, nor is riding Star Tours. Why are waits for this so long in DL and so short (at least at low crowd times?) at WDW? Mysteries of the universe...

Then the plan is to hoof it back across the park and eat at Rancho de Zocala. The food here looks really appealing (JH's favorite food on earth is a bean burrito. And G and I both like Mexican a lot, and can split the carne asana enchillada platter pretty inexpensively.) We don't really eat much quick service at WDW, but the reviews are really favorable, so hoping for a good quick service experience.

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I'm hoping we can beat the lunch crowds over here. If not... Ugh. Lets just hope we can. I'm intentionally not scheduling lunch ADR's because I want to have lots of flexibility during the day. I looked at Blue Bayou...I just don't get the hype. The Monte Cristo looks grosssssss-- sorry if you are a fan. And THIS is NOT a mint julep.

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I grew up in the Deep South, we have a Derby party every year for the Kentucky Derby, and I have a huge collection of julep cups. I am a self-admitted bourbon snob. (For the record, Four Roses is my favorite everyday bourbon, Blanton's for a special occasion. I could wax on about this a lot if anyone cares:rotfl:) THIS is a mint julep.image.jpeg


So-- no dining package for us!

The afternoon plan is BTMRR-- maybe multiple times if the waits are as short as predicted, because we all love it. Then we will head back to Fantasyland, and ride IASW, Mr. Toad, Pinocchio, Pooh, maybe the Gadget coaster. We will hopefully have a Space FP to use somewhere in there, and will ride Buzz, which is supposed to have short waits. I'm hoping we will pull a Splash FP at some point.

I have to say, I'm someone who REALLY likes FP+. I feel sort of lost just hoping times work out like I anticipate they will.....

So, hopefully we are doing Splash sometime now, and will repeat anything we liked that doesn't have huge waits. I'm going to skip Toontown for today-- we will try to hit this early on Day 3, but I'm not really stressing about it. Same for the Nemo subs, Alice, Dumbo and the Matterhorn (which I honestly don't want to ride at all.) It sounds painful, and other than being an original ride, not that great? Am I missing something?

The plan then is to head towards the front of the park, trying to catch the Christmas parade at 4:15. We will then head over to Trader Sam's, hopefully without much wait? We love the Trader Sam's at the Poly, so this is a must-do.

Here is where I'm debating what to do next. Do we:
A) make a reservation at Carnation Cafe around 6?
B) pick up Earl of Sandwich and explore DTD a bit
C) ??? Some other QS in the DL? We will have hoppers, so going over to DCA is a possibility, as well.

I plan to be back in DL to get a spot for the 8:40 fireworks show-- a holiday-themed "Believe." If we are in the park, we can wander, shop, etc between dinner and time to find a spot. I'd like to see the projections on IASW, but I also don't want to wait forever for a spot. We will be tired after a really long day, and sitting still isn't that easy or fun with tired kids. Any thoughts on this? I'd love some advice!

We plan to head back to the room, grab the luggage and CRASH at this point.

I'll be back with plans for Day 2--Early Entry at DCA!
 
Day 2-- DCA plans!

So-- when I originally started planning this trip, it was for a Tues/Wed, so this day (originally a Wed) was to be a morning magic day at DCA. However, since we will be tired from the long day before, I'm actually glad that we don't need to be at the park at 7 am after all! The park is open 9-8 pm, and DL is 9-9pm, with an 8 am magic hour. Since we are at the HoJo, we only get one magic hour this trip, which I'm planning to save for Friday. We will get a chance to relax this morning, and will have some kind of light breakfast in the room. Then heading over to DCA for a 9 am opening.

Of course our first stop will be CarsLand! This day is predicted to be a 2/10, so we are hoping to ride RSR standby first. I'm planning to then grab a fastpass, and head to Flo's V-8 for a little more substantial breakfast/snack. We will probably share an American breakfast and the brioche French toast and fruit plate. Then it's off to Tower of Terror! The waits for this are expected to build pretty steadily, so we will knock it out early. My boys love it-- I tolerate the drops because I love my boys!

Next stop-- SOARIN!! My favorite ride in all of Disney. I'm SO excited for the new video. I haven't watched it or read anything about it, so I'm hoping to be surprised. Honestly, we will probably ride this twice in a row! Then the plan is to head to the Paradise Pier area, and do TSMM (also a favorite-- and the wait isn't predicted to be over 29 minutes all day. Toto, we're not in Orlando anymore...) I am not really sure what time our RSR FP will be, so we might be able to pull another FP now? I am going to highly discourage my kids from both California Screaming and the Ferris wheel, but I'm sure I will loose both battles. I like pretty tame roller coasters, but I'm so, so terrified of doing California Screaming.

This is where I can't really figure things out. This park seems pretty hard to map to me, and since so many attractions are unfamiliar, I think we will focus on atmosphere-soaking-in, and ride whatever strikes our fancy. Sky School, jellyfish, etc. I'm guessing it will be close to lunchtime then, and I'm planning on Carthay Circle. I'm debating between the lounge or making a reservation. I prefer to order a few small plates/salads to a full-sized entree, so either one will be fine for food, but the interior of the restaurant looks really fun. Luckily the boys are really good in all kinds of restaurants, so we will probably eat at the restaurant.

One of our very, very favorite things to do at WDW was the Annimation Academy, so that will be our next stop after lunch (or maybe before if we have time?). We often did it 2-3 times a day at WDW-- so this is a must do! After that, Monster's Inc, the Aladin show, maybe ToT again? I'm really struggling with this day! So many attractions seem like the kids might be too old to really enjoy, but since it's all new we want to try as much as possible. We will hit up,the other Cars Land and Bugs Land things we missed after lunch.

For our dinner plans, I'm a little stumped. Cove Bar is probably out because of waits. Maybe we should do Carthay Circle for dinner, and something else for lunch. Do we venture to DTD for dinner? Or back to Trader Sam's? I'm really trying to embrace the go-with-the-flow feel of DL-- but it's hard when you are used to WDW scheduling!

Our next hurdle is WOC. There were originally two shows scheduled for tonight. However, now everything after Nov 10 is blank on Touring Plans for nighttime shows. I can't find any reports of closures. So we will have the loose plan to go back to experience CarsLand at dusk/dark, the attend the second WOC show. If we still have any energy, we might race over to DL to catch Believe at 9pm-- I'm not going to plan on that, but not ruling it out, either. We have a 7 am magic hour Friday, so we need to be packed and well-rested for that!
 
OH, husbands. Gotta love them. (I mean, actually gotta love them because they let you come with to conferences at exciting places in close proximity to Disney! But also...). When we were initially talking about this trip, it seemed like Monday and Tuesday would be good days to do some family stuff, and then the rest of the week would be busy with meetings. Except yesterday he tells me that he'll be in meetings allllllll day Tues-Thursday, and totally free Friday. It's a good thing this is Disneyland and not Disney World, because it turns out that the best days for us to visit DL will be Tuesday-Thursday, arriving back in San Diego around 5 pm Thursday. Luckily it was VERY easy to rearrange our hotel dates, and since there is no FP+ or ADR's to worry about, no harm, no foul.

These new dates qualified us for the Fall room offer, and I was able to use a Mousesavers tip and stack discounts with CheapTickets to book a room at the Grand Califorinian! The entire reservation will be about $450 more than the HoJo, which I would normally be VERY excited about and run with.

However, this week has been... Interesting. On Saturday night around 3 am, we woke up to our dogs going crazy and a policeman at the door. On our very quiet residential street, with our car parked out front, a drunk driver swerved around anothe car, tipped the front of my husband's car, flipped their (brand new) Pilot into its side, and totalled my husband's small Honda. Fun times. Luckily the driver was ok, and also luckily they were not able to drive away from the scene and had good insurance. We are getting a new car this weekend, but that still comes with some unexpected expenses. And on top of that, we just went under contract on a new house. Not exactly new, since it was built in 1921! We will be doing a HUGE renovation-- gutting the interior of the main house, revamping wiring, plumbing, adding two bathrooms, hoping to salvage the original plaster and renovating the kitchen, PLUS doing a two-story addition with a master suite and a family room downstairs. In the end it will be our dream home (it is almost EXACTLY like the "Father of the Bride" house, which has always been my favorite movie house EVER) BUT... moving is never cheap, and the renovation part is just an added layer. Just this week I've written checks to the home inspector, termite inspector, surveyor, architect... So. The sensible thing-- and quite honestly what I can actually afford!-- is to keep the HoJo reservation. I've got until 11/11 to cancel the GC, and I'm thinking that if I can scrape up the extra money in a way that is truly "extra"-- like a yard sale, selling outgrown kids clothes, etc--I will keep the GC. Otherwise, we will be excited just to BE there, and enjoy the extra exercise the HoJo walk will provide!

The date switching TOTALLY messed up all my plans; we will now hit DCA first thing Tuesday, and have our DL day on Day 2 of the trip. Because I'm kind of still figuring it out-- and because plans are less exciting than reports!-- I will just come back with a report when we get home and tell you all about what we did!

Switching gears now, I'm going to start our WDW plans, which are VERY firm and fleshed out and have been in place for months now! Continued to next post....
 
My signature probably tells you that we are big resort hoppers. Often, it's to save money by taking advantage of weekend rates at a value or moderate, since deluxe weekend rates can be exorbitant. It's also because we have multiple favorites, and like to try new things. We've done a triple split before, and I said NEVER AGAIN. It is a lot of switching, packing, etc. So.... How did we come to have a triple split for our January 2017 stay?!

We planned to arrive on Saturday, Jan 7; I figured this would be a good trip to try renting points for the first time, since we actually had dates in place 11 months in advance. Often I plan trips on 3-4 months notice, so points rental has always been out (at least for a studio.). This summer I contacted a rental agency, typed in my dates for a Sat/Sunday stay, and got everything all set up. I was doing most of this back and forth while at my kids' swim practice, not REALLY paying attention. It was about 8 months out, and I was pleasantly surprised that a BLT studio was available for Sat/Sun of the Marathon weekend. How convenient! You know that feeling in the back of your mind--that I chose to ignore, stupidly-- that something's not quite right? Right after I signed the rental agreement and paid our first installment (non-refundable) I went to enter the dates into my calendar. And they were for SUNDAY AND MONDAY?! What the heck?! When I checked the rental site's web request form, it turns out that they have an option to check ALL dates in 2016. Even though it was June, and I'm 99.9999% sure I set the year to 2017, it checked-- and booked-- 2016 dates.

So-- rather than forfeit the money I'd already paid, I decided to keep the reservation at BLT Jan 8-9. This left us in need of a room for Jan 7. I have a travel agent who gets truly "magical" deals on rooms and tickets, and I was able to book a room at the Poly (we LOVE the Poly, but it is getting beyond our budget pretty quickly!) for Sat, Jan 7, with 8-day hoppers, for a very, very reasonable rate. So, we are now at Poly Jan 7, BLT Jan 8-9, and I'm thinking I will just book a BC reservation for the remainer of the trip. Which I do. And then room discounts are released-- uh, no thanks, 10% discount on BC! Luckily, YC was discounted 25%, so I booked Tues, Jan 9--Sat Jan 13 at the YC in a garden view.

In the end, it works out REALLY well in terms of our park plans. We will be able to fit in things I thought we couldn't because of proximity to the parks/park hour changes, and I'm really excited about it now. Packing will be a bit of a nightmare, but I've gotten pretty good at packing for 1-2 days at a time, since when we travel we rarely stay I the same place more than 2-3 nights, so I will figure it out. I'm thinking a bag that holds things like toiletries, shoes, ponchos, etc. that we will need each day, then one suitcase for the Poly/BLT days and another for the YC days. I'm getting SO excited-- we haven't been in January since 2014, and the low crowds are so nice. Hoping for decent weather-- you just really never do know at that time of year. We will come prepared for everything!

Next up-- As the ADR Turns.... Or, How I managed to fit approximately 1 million meals into one week!
 
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Now for the best part-- WDW FOOD! We will be there Sat-Sat, and I have sixteen dining reservations! I think I'll divide it up into a few days at a time, with ADR's, park plans and what we will probably order. Off we goooo!

SATURDAY JANUARY 7

We fly out of Raleigh at 10:50 m, landing at 12:30. I'm hoping to grab something at the airport to tide us over until we get to Orlando and on the DME. There are several choices in the Southwest terminal for a light lunch, so we will probably split sandwiches or something like that. We plan to hustle over to the Magical Express. We haven't flown in several years, although we generally always grabbed our own luggage when we did fly, so we will probably do that this time. I hope to be on a bus and back to the Poly around 2pm. Hopefully the room will be ready by then, but if not, I plan to have swimsuits in our carry on. The weather in January on our past trips has been totally unpredictable. If it's over 60 degrees, my kids will definitely swim-- I won't! We will then grab some food-- the pork nachos are my favorite here, and we will probably split those, and get the kids something to share. They can swim, we can hang out and relax. A Dole Whip will be a must!

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Mmmmmm!

Trader Sam's opens at 4 pm, and we plan to be there as soon as they open! I'm not a big rum fan, or a sweet drinks fan in general, but I will order something that comes in a souvenir glass and choke it down!:drinking1 I saw a picture of a Hitchiking Ghost tiki mug that is offered right now-- hopefully it will still be around after Halloween and I can get one! We plan to spend 30-45 minutes here, then hop on the monorail to our first park--EPCOT! I love to visit EPCOT first-- even before the MK-- and Epcot at dusk is my absolute favorite. We will have FP+ for Spaceship Earth and Soarin. The kids and I will get to do the new version at DL in two weeks, but this will be my husband's first time. I will probably use the last FP for Mission Space (barf!) for later in the evening-- I will find something else to do while the kids ride. Is FEA a tier 1 at Epcot? Need to research this.

Our dinner plans tonight are intentionally loose. We will most likely grab some quick service; top contenders are the fish and chips stand or Morocco. If the crowds are manageable, we will see about the Rose and Crown lounge, or see if there is a last minute ADR at Spice Rd. Table. We will then head over to HS for the Star Wars fireworks! We have never seen these-- any tips for a best viewing spot? These are scheduled for 7 pm, and Epcotbis open until 9. We will probably head back to Epcot after the show, try to ride TT single rider, then head back to the Poly!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 8

We have a 7:30 ADR at Kona Cafe. I LOVE the pineapple macadamia pancakes there, and I'm hoping my husband will get the Samoan, and share some bites with me!
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Our plan today is to hit HS-- it opens at 9 am. We will try to get the boys a Jedi Training slot, then hit Toy Story, Tower of Teror, Star Tours and anything else with a short line. I'm not planning to use FP here; we are saving those for our next park! We have a Sci Fi ADR at 12:20-- this is a new restaurant for us! The salmon BLT looks good--maybe my husband will split bit with me and we can save room for dessert!

After lunch we will hop over to the MK. I expect it to be pretty crowded, so we will use FP +, and are not staying very long. I need to study the crowd predictor to confirm this, but I assume we will use up all our FP and make another before we leave the park that we will use later that night. Around 4:00 we can WALK over to our home for the next two nights--Bay Lake Tower! This is also a new resort for us; we stayed at the CR in 2014, but never set foot in BLT. We will check in, have the luggage brought up, and then head down to ANOTHER new restaurant for us--The Wave! Both friends and the Dis describe this as a hidden gem, and several things look really good. The "Bacon and Eggs " (maple-lacquered pork belly and Lake Meadow Naturals perfect egg and Tillamook smoked cheddar grits) are a must! The reviews of soups I've seen here look fantastic-- I'm hoping for something creamy and decadent that I won't make at home because it's basically alllll butter fats-- but calories don't count on vacay! The soup, the harvest salad and the app would be ample for my dinner-- on the current menu, only the gnocchi really jumps out at me. Maybe we will end up splitting an entree and an app/salad? This is why we rarely use the DDP--th small plates always look so much more appealing to me than the large plates! The kids are excited about the filet option on the kids menu!

After dinner we plan to head back to the MK, and stay through Wishes! Then back to BLT and to bed!

 
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