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

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

I am, by nature, a pretty serious planner. A normal vacation includes a packing list broken into a half-dozen categories, important documents printed in triplicate (just in case) and detailed itineraries. I am also quite the overachiever, so despite this being my first attempt at planning for Disney, I want to do it right and avoid the obvious, and less obvious, newbie mistakes.


My goal for this PTR is twofold. First, I’d love any and all constructive feedback every step of the way. If something looks like it won’t work, tell me!! Second, my husband is already groaning every time I mention Disney. I need another outlet for the next 10 months of, “Oooo, what if we did x instead of y?” or my marriage may not survive. Which brings me here, to strangers on the internet. Despite our distance, I know you all will listen when I debate the pros and cons of making our character buffet ADRs as late breakfast versus early lunch. These are the kinds of things you need to lock down with 300 days to go, obviously!!


The Details

Who:

• Me (Christine)
• Hubby
• Triplet girls who will be 5 when the magic begins. Since calling them all DD5 would get super confusing, let’s go with A, B, and C. That’s what they’ve been since that fateful ultrasound back in June of 2013.
• Family friends (Mom, Dad, kids 6,4,3) will likely be joining us for a few days in the middle. We’re planning for our immediate family first and then we’ll see when they want to join us. (ETA they are no longer joining)

What:

• 9 days, 8 nights at Walt Disney (ETA we're up to 10 days)

When:

• February 25 – March 5, 2019 (ETA 2/25-3/6)

Where:

• Two rooms at Pop (ETA switched to BWV studio)

I have a good 90% of the trip planned, at least with initial ideas as to how I should try to lay things out. Unfortunately, the girls were up super early this morning, so sleep calls. Goodnight for now!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

A Bit More About Us
Why Such A Long Trip?
Picking the Dates
Where to Stay
Did I Pick the Right Park Days?
And then everything flipped around
How Cramped Will We Be In One Room?
Shuffling Days and Reservations
Every Day I’m Waffling
Is One Day at AK Enough?
Proposed Itinerary Days 1-4
Proposed Itinerary Days 5-7
Proposed Itinerary Days 6-10
A Week At The Beach
ADR Day AKA Disney IT Screws With Me
How and When to Narrow Down ADRs
Locking Down The Park Days
19 Things for 2019
Double Digit Dance!
'Twas the Night Before Fastpasses
Fastpass Success!
Hurry Up And Wait
One Month To Go!!
Our Trip Is In The 10 Day Forecast
I’m (Sort Of) On Vacation!
One More Sleep!

Trip Report

Ridiculous Update
August Update
Additional Update on August- Adding A Day
I Think We Need An Intervention
FPs for All
Kids, What Kids?
On The Benefits Of Free Childcare
Almost There

Trip Report

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

A Bit More About Us

In many ways we’re your typical family taking the kids on their first trip to WDW. Hubby and I both went as kids and the last trip for each of us was senior year of high school. We have vague park memories that are 15 years old and have never actually had to plan any of it ourselves. I like rides of all types, the crazier the better. Hubby gets motion sickness sometimes, usually if something has a lot of first person visual elements. He’s fine on thrill rides, coasters, etc but video experiences where the camera makes it feel like you’re moving around can make him nauseous. Truthfully, this trip isn’t about us, though, it’s about the girls.

The girls will be 5 when we travel. While we’ve never done Disney, we have season passes to Sesame Place, so I have some sense of how they do at theme parks.

• First and foremost, they LOVE characters of all kinds. If there’s a mascot of some kind, even a character they don’t recognize, they want to run up for hugs and pictures. We were at a running expo and the JVC mascot was there: it’s just a giant blue blob, in the shape of an earbud. They ran up to hug him, asked for pictures, and wanted to interact with him every time he walked past us (he was making the rounds) culminating in a rousing rendition of the Hokey Pokey. With that in mind, our trip will be very character heavy. At this point, in addition to a ton of character meals, we’re probably also using fast passes in MK to visit with princesses. A’s favorite is Ariel, B’s are Rapunzel and Belle, C’s is Elsa.

• The girls will likely be 42-43” at the time of travel, so a lot of the hot ticket rides will be out of their range (FoP, EE, RnR, etc). They love the rollercoaster at Sesame, so we’ll plan on trying for FP+ for the ones that they can go on. While the girls love a good thrill ride, they don’t like being scared on rides. Motion is fine, but things jumping out and saying “Boo” will not go over well. Right now, that knocks Haunted Mansion, Dinosaur, and It’s a Bugs Life (spiders descend from the ceiling, right?) off of our list. ToT is also out because they don’t like the drop ride at Sesame, which is much smaller and well lit.

• Any shows or live performances are a big hit around here. Even when we’re walking through the city, they want to stop and dance for street musicians. On our cruise last year, they asked us to find live music pretty much every night and ended up being the only kids hanging in a jazz club. With that in mind, we’re looking at a day and a half at HS to make sure we can fit in all the show and we’ll spend more time in the World Showcase than a lot of kids this age might because we know they’ll want to stop to watch any performances in the various countries.

• Unfortunately, we’re going to need stroller space for all three. We will likely just use them when we’re moving between larger areas, but leave them parked between nearby rides. They are fine without transport 90% of the time, but the walk back to the parking lot at the end of a long day is gruesome for all of us when we skip the wagon. (“Mommy, my legs are so hurt they’re like they’re bleedy!”). Given the length of their trip, I don’t want to burn them out by forcing too much walking. I’m less worried about the adults; we’re both runners in good health and can handle long days on our feet. Plus, hubby and I are used to having to drag three kids around, so only pushing a double or single will feel light as air.

• The girls are not going to be having many open-to-close park days. We are pretty strict with a 7:30 bedtime around here, and they’re not particularly early to wake. Presumably, they’ll be able to hang a bit more in a year, but they’re not suddenly going to be able to make it 9-9 more than maybe once in the trip. With that in mind, we’re scheduling days as either rope drop or making it to fireworks, not both. Rope drop days won’t have anything scheduled in the evening, so we’ll head back to the resort whenever they start to lag. Fireworks days we’ll let the girls wake up whenever and not push to get to the parks too early. If they’re doing well, I’m fine with going earlier or staying later than planned; I’m just not going to bank on it. AK is the only day I’m hoping to do open to close, and that’s because we’ve only got one day booked there. I know a lot of people like to have a midday rest back at the resort, but I don’t think that’ll work for us. By the time we get on the buses back and start relaxing, we’re not going to want to go through heading back in. Instead, we’re going to plan character meals for lunch most days and use that as our rest-and-recharge.

Our very good friends will likely be joining us for a few days. They will be passholders next year and want to come down for a few days to enjoy the parks with us. Their plan is to follow our lead on touring and split off for things they aren’t into.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Why Such A Long Trip?

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

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

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

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Picking the Dates

We always planned to do the big Disney trip in the girls’ pre-k year. It’s the last year before “real” school where we’d be concerned about pulling the girls for this many days in a row. Since we aren’t worried about missed school, we wanted to pick the dates based on when we think crowds will be low(er) and we’ll be able to get the most out of it.

We want cooler weather, so that lands us from about November through March. Back to school through Christmas is always super busy in our family. It seems like things are always nuts from the time school starts until the new year. Once you knock out busier weekends (MLK, President’s, princess runs), it leaves us looking at either end of January into February or end of February into March. After going back and forth, I decided end of January was too much of a risk that it would be actually cold, not just cool, during our trip.

February 25th is the Monday after the princess half and most of those guests will be heading out. Then, there will hopefully be a lull before Mardi Gras and the beginning of spring break crowds. Mardi Gras is actually our departure day, so we’re hoping that those crowds don’t build too early in the week. At the very least, since it’s the end of our trip, we’ll have the chance to book dining and fastpasses at 180+8/60+8 and we won’t be competing with the folks coming the weekend before.

I’d be curious to hear other people’s experience with end of January versus end of February, as we still have plenty of time to tweak things if need be.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Where to Stay

We’re taking this trip to spend time in the parks, not hang at a resort, so we’re really only looking for a home base to sleep, bathe, and have breakfast. That said, when we cruised last year, it was a total hassle with 5 of us in the same room. I wanted to get things done after the kids were in bed, but I could only do it quietly and by flashlight. There are a couple of cheaper options for a family of 5 at POR and CBR, but then we’d be right back stuck living by flashlight after the kids are in bed.

For options with a door that shuts from the girls, the cheapest on-site routes are two rooms at a value or the suites at All Star Music. With the recent refurbs at Pop, it seems like the best choice for us. We’d have queen beds, two mini fridges, two bathrooms, and a coffee pot. We’re not going to use either murphy bed (the girls refuse to sleep in separate beds when they have room to cuddle) so we’ll have a table with chairs in each room as well.

As a bonus, by booking two rooms, we have the option to put the dining plan on one reservation but not the other. Currently, we’re looking at doing the DxDP on the room with me and two of the Disney kids. Traditional plan would be 40 TS, 40 QS, 80 snacks. DxDP on half of us is 72 meals TS or QS and 48 snacks. It’s about $250 less for the week than the DDP for all five, it allows us to do as many meals TS as we want, and it should prevent a lot of food waste. Our kids aren’t big eaters, so we’ll have to pay for them at character meals but likely won’t need more than three meals between the five of us at QS or a la carte TS. Along those same lines, we’d NEVER be able to go through 10 snacks a day as a family. The girls are more of a “split a pretzel” crew than one for each. So, the fewer snacks should work much better for our group.

I've also been toying with the idea of going off-site, as the options for a family of 5 are much more extensive. But, I think the benefit of the ME plus the way we're looking at dining on the DxDP offer enough value to be worth the higher cost, at least for this trip. Once the kids are out of car seats an off of the character kick, we'll likely reconsider.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Did I Pick the Right Park Days?

In trying to decide which park to do which day, I was looking at difficulty on dining reservations and FPs, which parks are supposed to be more crowded on which days, etc. We're not going to use EMH, so I am purposefully booking on days when parks don't typically have them. Since we're going in February and March, I'm expecting more restricted 9am to 9pm hours in general, which is actually better for us because my kids can't do more than that anyway. I'd love to hear any thoughts on whether you think I'll actually be able to get what I'm aiming for (is Seven Dwarfs on 60+1 completely unattainable??) or if you think I could lay things out better.

Also, I think it's worth preempting questions about some of my weirder FP choices with a reminder on our family make up. My kids will all be under 44" and generally aren't good at scary rides, so they can't (or won't) do RnR, ToT, Dinosaur, FoP, or Space Mtn. While I do have a few rider swaps in there (I'm not missing FoP for the little stinkers!), that's why I'm booking things like Indiana Jones at HS over RnR or ToT, which are much better choices for most folks.

So, what do you think? Am I going to be able to get what I'm going for?

Monday, February 25th (180/60)
HS afternoon arrival after flights (short day, really just wanted to get 2 shots at tier 1 FP for Toy Story land)
FP Goals: Slinky Dog Coaster 2:00pm, Indiana Jones 6:00pm, Star Tours 7:00pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Will start refreshing ASAP and reschedule after Slinky Dog for anything else in Toy Story land, but I’m not that optimistic
Dining Goal: Hollywood and Vine with Fantastmic 3:55pm

Tuesday, February 26th (180/60 +1)
MK late morning to fireworks (through the castle to Fantasyland, then down towards Frontierland)
FP Goals: Winne the Pooh 10am, Seven Dwarfs 11:10am, Peter Pan 1:30pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Pirates
Dining Goal: Ideally, I’d do CRT lunch here, rather than as a PPO on the last day. But, I’m assuming that’s too tough to get for a 180+1. In that case, Liberty Tree Tavern 12pm.

Wednesday, February 27th (180/60 +2)
EP rope drop to early evening (Soarin’ rope drop, some Futureworld, then lots of World Showcase)
FP Goals: Spaceship Earth 9:30am, Frozen 10:45am
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Illuminations or Character Spot
Dining Goal: Askershus 12pm

Thursday, February 28th (180/60 +3)
MK rope drop to early evening (Rope drop Tomorrowland, then up towards Fantasyland)
FP Goals: Ariel 10am, Enchanted Tales with Belle 11:10am, Rapunzel 1:30pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Pirates (if I didn’t get it before)
Dining Goal: BoG Lunch 12:15pm

Friday, March 1st (180/60 +4)
AK rope drop to ROL (Rope drop Navi so we can have FOP for adults, then up to Lion King, and working around clockwise)
FP Goals: Safari 10:30am, Kali River Rapids 2:30pm, FOP for two only at 6pm
Dining Goal: Tusker with RoL 12pm

Saturday, March 2nd (180/60 +5)
MK late morning to early evening (Railroad to Frontierland, then work back through Lib Squ and Main St, trying to hit both parades this day)
FP Goals: BTMRR 9:30am, Splash Mtn 1:30pm, Jungle Cruise 3:15pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Pirates (if I didn’t get it before)
Dining Goal: Crystal Palace 12pm

Sunday, March 3rd (180/60 +6)
EP late morning to fireworks (lots of time in Futureworld, then the whatever of World Showcase we missed on 1st EP day)
FP Goals: Test Track 9:45am, Mission Space 10:50am, Turtle Talk 1:00pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Illuminations or Character Spot, depending on what we missed day 1
Dining Goal: Garden Grill 11:45am

Monday, March 4th (180/60 +7)
HS rope drop to early evening (Rope Drop whichever Toy Story land we couldn’t get FP for, lots of shows)
FP Goals: TSM or Alien ride, waiting to see which one is harder to rope drop versus get a FP at 60+7 9am, Frozen Sing Along 2:30pm, Beauty and the Beast 5pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Will start refreshing ASAP and reschedule after 1st ride for anything else in Toy Story land, but I’m not that optimistic
Dining Goals: Bon Voyage breakfast at Trattoria al Forno 12pm (I believe that’s the latest it’s offered), Sci Fi Diner 6:15pm

Tuesday, March 5th (180/60 +8)
MK PPO breakfast through lunch, then flights home (plan will likely adjust through the week as we decide which favorites we’d like to rebook with FP)
FP Goals: Seven Dwarfs 9:30am, Space Mtn for one person and Buzz for the other 4 at 10:40am with planned rider switch, BTMRR 12pm
Dining Goal: PPO CRT

 

[cinderaimee]

I love your plans and the dining you have picked out. I hope you do a trip report after because I'd love to see how Disney with triplets is

If you're doing rope drop at Magic Kingdom, you should try and get a PPO BoG breakfast so you can get into Fantasyland before the crowds!

 

[mrcase77]

Is is doable to get Slinky Dog fast passes on day 1? I had the impression people were having to book those further in. (I’m torn between doing extra HS time on arrival vs departure day because of that)

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

And then everything flipped around.

So much has changed in a month!!! I should practically delete and restart the thread (not really, but sort of). Here’s what I’ve been up to:

The Who: My friend and her family who were supposed to be coming are no longer on board. They were coming based on APs they would have because his parents got a place in Orlando. Huge fight with his parents, no longer planning on visiting FL as often, no APs on the docket, no trip with us. I’m glad I wasn’t building them too much into the planning!

What and When: The Southwest flights totally messed me up. The flight time that they had been offering consistently for months changed on flight release day. Neither my flights in or out were what I wanted. So, we added a day: 10 days, 9 night, 2/25-3/6. Great news is that departure day is now nearly a full day, as we don’t fly out of MCO until 8:25pm! Because we don’t land until 2ish on arrival day, that’s a resort day. And, it’ll be a much nicer resort day because…

Where: Boardwalk Villas Studio. When I was doing all of my initial research on how to sleep a family of 5, I had looked at an outdated room capacity list for Beach Club and Boardwalk that said they only slept 4 people. Early on, I had considered renting DVC, but the lowest point rooms that slept 5 were out of my price range, or so I thought. That’s how we landed on the split rooms at Pop. At some point here on Dis, I saw a thread about DVC capacity that said BCV and BWV could sleep 5 after the renovations. After much back and forth with my husband, playing with the numbers, etc, we decided to go ahead and rent points to book Boardwalk. The room price point is very close: our out of pocket right now is actually lower than rack rate at Pop, although I fully expect that room-only discounts would have knocked that down once they release for February. We can’t do the half DxDP game, since we’re all in one room, and space will obviously be tighter at one room than two. But, walking distance to two parks!! Deluxe resort amenities!!

With the room change, date change, and dining plan change, our daily plans have shifted as well. The kids sounds like they’re waking up, so I guess more on that later.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

I love your plans and the dining you have picked out. I hope you do a trip report after because I'd love to see how Disney with triplets is

If you're doing rope drop at Magic Kingdom, you should try and get a PPO BoG breakfast so you can get into Fantasyland before the crowds!

We'll see if I have the energy for a trip report after all of that! I assume I will want to, as a means of my alleviating my Disney withdrawal.

We're going to try for a BOG PPO on our last day for early Fantasyland time, but we want one day where we actually see the morning show with the kids. That's is why our RD day is into Tomorrowland. From what I've read, that's a much calmer RD where we can watch the whole show and casually walk to Buzz without finding a 15 minute wait when we get there.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Is is doable to get Slinky Dog fast passes on day 1? I had the impression people were having to book those further in. (I’m torn between doing extra HS time on arrival vs departure day because of that)

Well, I was hoping that an evening FP would be doable by February, with lower crowds and the land not being so very new. As it turns out, our HS days are later in our trip, now.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

How Cramped Will We Be In One Room?

After my family of 5 cruised together in one room, I said, “Never Again!” We weren’t going to go on another vacation with all of us jammed so tight and no door the adults could close to be able to do what they needed after the kids were asleep at 8pm.

Here I am, not even a year later, booking another 5 person room! A lot of serious thought went into the decision, there was much back and forth with hubby, there’s even a thread on here about it (link). When it came down to it, we really loved the location and amenities of Boardwalk, such that we were willing to accept tighter sleeping conditions. We were also concerned that, if we didn’t get connecting rooms at Pop, we would be in an even worse position of having to put an adult in each, separate room come bed time. Plus, I didn’t completely break my rule, because the adults can close the balcony/patio door and still be up having a conversation after the kids are in bed. I’m hoping that comparing a tiny (miniscule) five person cruise room to a deluxe villa is silly and that we’ll have sufficient space. I guess we’ll all find out in the trip report…

 

[cinderaimee]

Wow, what an exciting update! We stayed in a BWV for our last trip and space wasn’t a huge issue. My tip would be just put the beds away as soon as everyone’s up because they take up a lot of room. You’re also losing your table space if you’re going to use the pull down bed, and it may be a little tricky getting to the balcony with the sofa bed open - we usually would push the coffee table in front of the door to make room to open the bed. But I’m sure you could Tetris the furniture into another configuration We LOVED the Boardwalk! It’s such a fun resort and being able to walk right to the parks is amazing!

 

[sheri18]

Joning in. I am a planner too. And getting obsessive about our January trip...I am so pleased to have this boards too,as my DH does not want to hear anymore about this trip...

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Wow, what an exciting update! We stayed in a BWV for our last trip and space wasn’t a huge issue. My tip would be just put the beds away as soon as everyone’s up because they take up a lot of room. You’re also losing your table space if you’re going to use the pull down bed, and it may be a little tricky getting to the balcony with the sofa bed open - we usually would push the coffee table in front of the door to make room to open the bed. But I’m sure you could Tetris the furniture into another configuration We LOVED the Boardwalk! It’s such a fun resort and being able to walk right to the parks is amazing!

I'm glad you enjoyed the Boardwalk! I doubt we'll use the murphy bed- my girls have their twin beds pushed together now to make one monster bed because they prefer sleeping together. I would be very surprised if they didn't all want to share the sofa bed. I'm hoping I can get the coffee table up where the lockoff door is next to the table/murphy bed and still have room to sneak into and out of the balcony, but we shall see.

Joning in. I am a planner too. And getting obsessive about our January trip...I am so pleased to have this boards too,as my DH does not want to hear anymore about this trip...

Oh my goodness, every time I start a conversation with, "So, I've been thinking..." he asks, "It's six months from now, do we really need to talk about this right now?" He just doesn't understand. :-(

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Shuffling Days and Reservations

With the extra day thrown in, and the split DxDP thrown out, a lot of my plans have changed, or more accurately shifted. Plus, with the location change, we’ll be entering Epcot through IG and won’t have to leave the room nearly as early in the morning for EP and HS days. Here’s my ideal scenario:

Monday, February 25th (180/60)
Flight lands at 2pm, ME to Boardwalk
Resort time, grocery delivery, QS dinner at pool bar/Boardwalk Bakery/Boardwalk Pizza Window
Side note: I just saw a review of the new BW Pizza Window menu and they said it wasn’t just edible, it was actually good! I really hope that’s true, because it would make like much easier when picking QS meals for my crew during resort time.
If it’s too cold to swim (late February could go either way) we’ll check out DS and do our QS dinner there.

Tuesday, February 26th (180/60 +1)
MK morning to fireworks: it’s the girls first time so, while we’ll try to get there around open, we’re not RDing. We’re going to take it slow, look around, take some pictures when we first arrive. We’ll head towards Fantasyland and make our way down towards Adventureland. We’d like to get the last Move It, Shake It Parade of the day, too.
FP Goals: Winne the Pooh 9am, Peter Pan 10am, Rapunzel 11am
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Jungle Cruise
Dining Goal: CRT 12pm

Wednesday, February 27th (180/60 +2)
EP rope drop to early evening. We’ll try to get through all of Future World and a bit of WS but want to be walking back to BW so that they go down for a normal bed time. We’ll RD Soarin’ and start working our way through the pavilions from there.
FP Goals: Spaceship Earth 10:30am, Test Track 1:30, Mission Space 2:30
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Character Spot
Dining Goal: Garden Grill 11:45am

Thursday, February 28th (180/60 +3)
MK rope drop to early dinner at ‘Ohana. We want to see the welcome show, RD the Tomorrowland stuff, work up towards Fantasyland, and leave around 3 to head for ‘Ohana.
FP Goals: Ariel 10am, Enchanted Tales with Belle 11am, SDMT 1:30pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Jungle Cruise (if I didn’t get it before)
Dining Goal: BoG Lunch 12:30pm, ‘Ohana 4pm

Friday, March 1st (180/60 +4)
AK rope drop to ROL. We’re going to rope drop Navi, then up to Lion King, and working around clockwise. We’ll do the Pandora FPs just before dinner and then back across for ROL
FP Goals: Safari 10:30am, Kali River Rapids 2:30pm, FOP for me and NRJ for everyone else 4:50 (RS for hubby)
Dining Goal: Tusker with RoL 12pm

Saturday, March 2nd (180/60 +5)
Resort breakfast, then HS for afternoon through to Fantasmic. With the full day the day before, we’re giving the kids room to sleep in (which, for them, is getting up at 7:30 instead of 6:30) and starting slow. Once we hit HS, it’s going to be mostly shows mixed with a couple of rides until we get to Fantasmic.
FP Goals: SDD 12pm, Star Tours 3pm, Fantasmic (I’m not sure if I should really book the Fantasmic from the start. I don’t think they’ll be much availability in TSL after 3pm, so I doubt I’ll be refreshing into anything else, anyway. I might book something early to allow to expire so that I’ll be on 4th FP after Star Tours, in case we can snag something in TSL)
Dining Goal: Trattoria Al Forno 8:30am

Sunday, March 3rd (180/60 +6)
MK late morning to early evening. After another late night, we’re not going to be getting here extra early or staying too late. We’ll take the RR to Frontierland, work our way back towards the center of the park, and head out. We’re trying to hit the big parade and the Friendship Faire on this day, as well.
FP Goals: BTMRR 9:15am, Splash Mtn 12pm, Pirates 1pm
Day-of Bonus FP Goal: Jungle Cruise (if I didn’t get it before)
Dining Goal: Crystal Palace 10:30am

Monday, March 4th (180/60 +7)
EP late morning to fireworks. We’ll have resort time in the morning and head into the IG in time to get some treats at Les Halles and see everything else open up at 11am. We’ll make our way around WS, hopefully so that we’re back at the IG bridge in time for Illuminations.
FP Goals: FEA 4pm, any two to expire in the morning. Unless the kids really want to double up on something from our first Epcot day, we’re planning to just stick to the WS. Only reason I’d book the other two is so that, after we use FEA, I can start refreshing in the hopes of grabbing an additional FEA some time that evening.
Dining Goal: Akershus 5:30pm

Tuesday, March 5th (180/60 +8)
HS RD to 2ish, then resort time. Illuminations will have been another late one, but, as long as HS is a 9am regular open, we should still be able to walk over and RD it fine. They never sleep past 7:30 and can eat their breakfast in the stroller while the adults hoof it over to HS. We’ll RD whichever TSL ride we didn’t get on our two FP days, see the rest of the shows, and head out for resort time, which will also let me get the room packed up.
FP Goals: Alien Ride 9am, Indiana Jones 10:45 show, Little Mermaid 11:45. Only booking Indy and Mermaid so that I will have used my first three and can start refreshing for possible TSL bonus FPs.
Dining Goal: Sci Fi 12pm

Wednesday, March 6th (180/60 +9)
PPO at MK until late afternoon, before catching ME for an 8:25pm flight. I’d really like to do resort airline check in before heading to MK, so we’ll have to be out of the room super early. I’ll have everything packed other than morning toiletries, so we’ll wake, change, and go. I know this is going to end up being a VERY long day, but it’s our last and I think everyone will want to make the most of it. The PPO should allow us an extra SDMT or two, which would be great!
FP Goals: SDMT 9:30am, Space for 1 10:30am (RS), BTMRR 11:30am
Dining Goal: BOG PPO

My hardest ADRs, FPs, are laid out as follows:
+1 CRT lunch
+3 BoG lunch, ‘Ohana dinner, SDMT
+4 FOP (but only for 1 in the evening)
+5 SDD, Bon Voyage breakfast
+7 FEA
+9 BoG PPO, SDMT

I’m hoping that most of these will be doable. The crows calendars “think” that my +1 through +3 days are very low crowds, as they’re in a lull between Princess Half and people gearing up for Spring Break/ Mardi Gras.

The way I see it, my biggest hang up is CRT on 180+1. I would much rather it there, based on timing, area of the parks, etc, but I know that’s a really hard one to grab. As a back up, I would flip flop it with my 180+6 Crystal Palace, which puts CRT at a much later date where I should have availability. The problem with that is that I don’t want to do Akershus and CRT on back to back days. If CP and CRT flip, so would my two Epcot days.

The current plan on ADR morning is to take the hard-to-get list for myself (CRT, BoG, etc) and give hubby a list that includes booking the GG lunch and the Akershus dinner on both Epcot days. Once we see how CRT shakes out, I’ll decide which Epcot day is which and cancel my duplicates. If I don’t get CRT right at 6am, I’ll put it on the reservation finder and hope that something comes up before FP+ day.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Every Day I’m Waffling

With 18 days left until my ADRs, I keep having second thoughts. My biggest dilemma is what to do on my HS days. We’ve got two days planned so that we can definitely fit all of the stage shows (my kids love shows of all kinds) and we get two sets of TSL FPs. The night we do Fantasmic, we’ll want to head into the park later, since that’ll be a late night for the kids. Then, we’ll RD the other day to hit the TSL that we can’t FP with the shortest possible line.

We definitely want to do the Bon Voyage breakfast, because Ariel and Rapunzel are A and B’s favorites. Since we’re staying at Boardwalk, it would make the most sense to do the breakfast the morning of our late park day. We get up, have a leisurely breakfast, and head into the park for the rest of the day. For our RD day, I currently have Sci-Fi as lunch, mostly because I want to try it out. Here’s where the waffling comes in:

We’re on the DDP, so meal cost if of no concern. While hubby and I would appreciate Sci Fi, the girls would love Hollywood & Vine. They love both buffets and characters. We would never do H&V if we weren’t on the DDP, whereas we could certainly do Sci Fi at a trip when the girls are older and less into characters. On the one hand, we have SO MANY character meals already planned; I’m hesitant to add another. Not every decision on this trip has to be about what would make the girls happiest: they would still be happy at Sci Fi, especially since they don’t know what they’re missing. On the other hand, they’ll only be five once and they’re never going to love visiting with characters as much as they do now. Perhaps it’s worth doing this one more character meal to add a bit more magic to the trip.

Following the H&V train of thought, it seems silly to book it without booking the dining passes. Again, since we’re on the DDP, we’re talking about a tiny increase in tip to be able to have the best seats in the house for F! and free up a FP. The problem is, to do H&V on our late day, we’d need to do Bon Voyage breakfast on our RD day. So, we’d walk/boat over to HS, RD TSL, leave to go back to our resort to eat a late breakfast/early lunch, then head right back into the park to finish up our HS time. That feels like a lot of in-and-out that we don’t need, but may be worth it to have the F! passes.

I just keep looping around between Sci Fi, H&V on our RD day, and fiddling with plans to do H&V with the F! passes. Ugh!

My other, much less frustrating waffle is the timing for ‘Ohana dinner. We’ll RD MK, leave to do ‘Ohana, and head to the resort. I’d like to be back at BW by 7pm, to leave time for showers before bed at 7:30. That would mean we’d want to get out of the Poly by 6ish, as we’ll have to take the monorail over to MK and then a bus back to BW (maybe I’m leaving too much time here??). Since ‘Ohana can often be a wait to be seated and can take a while, I figured a 4:00 dinner reservation would be safe. However, that means we’re leaving at about the same time as the parade exit crowd, or trying to get out during the parade. If I push ‘Ohana to 4:30, we could let the parade crowd disperse before we exit, but, if things take a while, we won’t end up with our “normal” bedtime like I want. It might be fine, if service runs well, if we catch good monorail/bus, etc. Heck, “normal” bedtime may have pushed to 8 by then, as the girls are getting older. If things line up well (‘Ohana doesn’t take too long, we catch quick monorail/bus) then I could even make a 5pm reservation and still be back at the resort in time for showers and normal bed. I wish I didn’t have to make this decision 6 months out!!

So, what do you think? Sci Fi, H&V, H&V with F!? What time would you book ‘Ohana?

 

[DaddysPrincess]

Hey! We're gonna be at Disney during the same time! Definitely following don't have any kids but I'm in the same situation as you. First time planning, trying to figure out the best way to utilize time and do it all

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Hello! We will be in Disney the same time. We will be there the same week! My girls are a little older, now 10 and 8.

My goal for this PTR is twofold. First, I’d love any and all constructive feedback every step of the way. If something looks like it won’t work, tell me!! Second, my husband is already groaning every time I mention Disney. I need another outlet for the next 10 months of, “Oooo, what if we did x instead of y?” or my marriage may not survive.

My husband humors me to a point. And he hates talking about it so far out. Which is basically why I came here as well.

Triplet girls who will be 5 when the magic begins. Since calling them all DD5 would get super confusing, let’s go with A, B, and C. That’s what they’ve been since that fateful ultrasound back in June of 2013.

I know you don't want to share their names here, but did you keep with the a, b, and c to start there names? Man triplet girls! Awesome

February 25 – March 5, 2019 (ETA 2/25-3/6)

We are there Feb 22nd to March 3rd!

First and foremost, they LOVE characters of all kinds. If there’s a mascot of some kind, even a character they don’t recognize, they want to run up for hugs and pictures. We were at a running expo and the JVC mascot was there: it’s just a giant blue blob, in the shape of an earbud. They ran up to hug him, asked for pictures, and wanted to interact with him every time he walked past us (he was making the rounds) culminating in a rousing rendition of the Hokey Pokey. With that in mind, our trip will be very character heavy. At this point, in addition to a ton of character meals, we’re probably also using fast passes in MK to visit with princesses. A’s favorite is Ariel, B’s are Rapunzel and Belle, C’s is Elsa.

Our first trip, when the girls were little, we did lots of character meats! They TOTALLY believed they were meeting the real princesses! It was true magic! And I agree with all 3 favorite Princesses!

The girls will likely be 42-43” at the time of travel, so a lot of the hot ticket rides will be out of their range (FoP, EE, RnR, etc). They love the rollercoaster at Sesame, so we’ll plan on trying for FP+ for the ones that they can go on. While the girls love a good thrill ride, they don’t like being scared on rides. Motion is fine, but things jumping out and saying “Boo” will not go over well. Right now, that knocks Haunted Mansion, Dinosaur, and It’s a Bugs Life (spiders descend from the ceiling, right?) off of our list. ToT is also out because they don’t like the drop ride at Sesame, which is much smaller and well lit

I can also say, our first trip we were in your boat and never once did we feel like we were missing out on anything.

we’ll spend more time in the World Showcase than a lot of kids this age might because we know they’ll want to stop to watch any performances in the various countries.

My girls LOVE EPCOT and the world showcase. I think it gets a bad rep. You guys will def like the shows there. The boardwalk has some Acts in the evening. Since you guys are staying at the boardwalk you should check that out one evening as well. I have never stayed there, so I don't know what it really entails but sounds like you guys would like that.

Unfortunately, we’re going to need stroller space for all three. We will likely just use them when we’re moving between larger areas, but leave them parked between nearby rides

We did this back when we had a stroller. It works well, especially in EPCOT and Animal Kingdom, they are the biggest.

The girls are not going to be having many open-to-close park days. We are pretty strict with a 7:30 bedtime around here, and they’re not particularly early to wake. Presumably, they’ll be able to hang a bit more in a year, but they’re not suddenly going to be able to make it 9-9 more than maybe once in the trip. With that in mind, we’re scheduling days as either rope drop or making it to fireworks, not both.

It's a good plan. Disney is exhausting for everyone. We didn't see a lot of night shows for the longest time because we needed the girls rested!

• By the time we get on the buses back and start relaxing, we’re not going to want to go through heading back in. Instead, we’re going to plan character meals for lunch most days and use that as our rest-and-recharge.

Good plan, for sure. Some of the shows are also a good way to rest.

We aren’t going to be the family that goes to Disney every year.

Becareful with that statement! We said that and now we basically go every year. It was every 5 years, then we went, and then we decided on a year and a half. and it got closer and closer...

I’d be curious to hear other people’s experience with end of January versus end of February, as we still have plenty of time to tweak things if need be

So, we have gone in early Feb. many times, And love it. We are pushing it out a little to get Flower and Garden before we leave, and hopefully it will be a little tiny bit warmer.

I'd love to hear any thoughts on whether you think I'll actually be able to get what I'm aiming for (is Seven Dwarfs on 60+1 completely unattainable??) or if you think I could lay things out better.

I think you can make most of your reservations. FOP and Slinky are probably the hardest to get.

Dining Goal: Ideally, I’d do CRT lunch here, rather than as a PPO on the last day. But, I’m assuming that’s too tough to get for a 180+1. In that case, Liberty Tree Tavern 12pm.

I don't think CRT is as hard as it used to be. But possible, I think.

Enchanted Tales with Belle 11:10am

From the sounds of it, this will be a family favorite for you guys. We love this one!

Dining Goals: Bon Voyage breakfast at Trattoria al Forno 12pm (I believe that’s the latest it’s offered), Sci Fi Diner 6:15pm

You guys will love Bon Voyage breakfast! We did it in Feb and we loved it! Great breakfast food and great characters!!!

We’re on the DDP, so meal cost if of no concern. While hubby and I would appreciate Sci Fi, the girls would love Hollywood & Vine. They love both buffets and characters. We would never do H&V if we weren’t on the DDP, whereas we could certainly do Sci Fi at a trip when the girls are older and less into characters. On the one hand, we have SO MANY character meals already planned; I’m hesitant to add another. Not every decision on this trip has to be about what would make the girls happiest: they would still be happy at Sci Fi, especially since they don’t know what they’re missing. On the other hand, they’ll only be five once and they’re never going to love visiting with characters as much as they do now. Perhaps it’s worth doing this one more character meal to add a bit more magic to the tri

So, I vote for Sci-Fi. I have heard nothing but horrible reviews on the food itself at H&V. I would say H&V only if your girls are really into some of the Disney Junior Characters that you can meet there. I know you said they like just about any character, but I don't know if it is worth it unless, one is there absolute favorite. Our girls love Sci-Fi. Sitting in a car and watching TV while they eat is great. And it's dark and cool in there. We love it. I know it's not a character dinning but it is a unique experience that you can't get elsewhere.

Ohana is harder... I would say stick with the 4 or 4:30 reservation. You will want to enjoy Ohana and not feel rushed to get out of there. And the Poly is worth exploring a bit if you finish early. It's beautiful!