AH! We're Set!

After feverishly consulting the charts and hours, etc....We have a plan!

2/6 Friday: Leave for Orlando, stop halfway overnight.

2/7 Saturday: Arrive early afternoon, check-in, head to park (Magic Kingdom)

2/8 Sunday: Hollywood Studios

2/9 Monday: Magic Kingdom, Katie at BBB 3:30pm

2/10 Tuesday: Magic Kingdom

2/11 Wednesday: Epcot

2/12 Thursday: Animal Kingdom, Tusker House 10:30am

2/13 Friday: Hollywood Studios

2/14 Saturday: Head home!

Starting Over....

Well, I finally decided it was worth $7.95 to sign up with an expert touring guide website. You get a "year" of sign up time.

www.touringplans.com

It gets great reviews. The site provides a detailed description of different "touring guides" for each park. Just suggestions on the most efficient way to see the parks and characters. Different guides are available for families with young children, older children, just adults, etc. It's not like it is a written in stone kind of plan, but just a guide for using throughout the day and ways to avoid the more popular rides at the heaviest time of the day, etc. The website has some free samples if you would like to see one....

Another thing it has is a crowd calendar. The people at this website have people who visit the parks ALL the time, every day of the year. They then compare all the data they gather like people who are in the park (they count them, not sure how), estimated wait times, and actual wait times for all the rides. They also take into consideration holidays and other special events. Very long and complicated process later, they actually have a calendar that tells you which park to visit (less crowds, short wait times) and which park to avoid (larger crowds, long wait times). For EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR!

WELL...my beautiful little plan is being stepped all over now. I had some good "general" info about the best days to visit each park, but now their data does not totally coincide with what I had planned and the reservations I had made.

THEREFORE....ha ha ha.....I get to spend some more time.....PLANNING!

Detailed FINAL plans TBA!

Touring Plans

We have been so blessed this Christmas to receive some gift cards and money to use for our trip. Our food budget is pretty much ready and the kids have plenty of spending money for their extra little things. I have, though, again....changed the touring plans. This is to fit in some extra things we wanted to do on certain days and with the days that are best for each park. I got a travel book with my Barnes and Noble gift certificate I got for Christmas, so I have had fun transferring all my "digital" plans and reservation numbers to our paper and pencil book. Here are the modified plans....with 40 days and counting!


Friday 2/6: Depart at some point in the day. Drive to Valdosta, GA, to visit with friends overnight.

Saturday 2/7: Arrive in Orlando, pm, visit Magic Kingdom to see fireworks and ride a few rides, see characters maybe?

Sunday 2/8: Animal Kingdom! Character Breakfast at Tusker House, 10:30am

Monday 2/9: Epcot!

Tuesday 2/10: OFF day. Relax at Resort. Downtown Disney 4:40pm reservation at Boma for Corey and me. Perhaps visit park for a few hours that first thing in the morning.

Wednesday 2/11: Magic Kingdom, 8:40am reservation for Katie at BBB

Thursday 2/12: Magic Kingdom

Friday 2/13: Hollywood Studios

Saturday 2/14: Head home, maybe revisit a park in the morning because we can? ha.

WOO HOOOOOOOOOOO!

How awesome is it that in the "post-Christmas letdown" we will just be starting our final countdown for our trip?!

A gift update:

For Katie and Noah's "something they need" gift for Christmas, we got them big nice Disney storybook collections to use for autographs. We also have small autograph books in case the big books end up being too much of a hassle to carry around. I do hope to do the books though because it will be a nice collectible item they can keep for years that won't get messed up. We also got them each a t-shirt for the "something they need" box. Who doesn't need a new t-shirt when they go on a vacation?

HERE is the book we got for Katie, and HERE is the book we got for Noah. Pretty cool!

Tickets!!!!

Our tickets arrived in the mail today!

I am going to wrap them up and put them under the tree!

YAY!

We ordered from:

www.undercovertourist.com

Rental: PAID IN FULL!

Woo hoo!!!! We PAID the balance on the rental yesterday....so if nothing else we have a 3 bedroom/2 bath, full kitchen, with a private pool paid for 7 nights!!!!

Next: ordering tickets! 73 days, 22 hours to go!

On the same topic...we actually decided to skip getting park hoppers and just go for a longer, regular ticket. For the price of a 3 day park hopper we can get 7 day regular passes and save $200 by not getting the park hopper option! So, this means we can only visit one park per day, but the money we save can help us do more for the donations we wanted to do for Christmas gifts. If we happen to have an extra $200 after we get down there, we can add park hopper if we want (maybe even just for me and Corey so we can park hop some at night and do some things we wanted to do) or just take the chance to rest after seeing the stuff we want.

Anyway, because of this change in ticket plan, we are going to have to slightly alter the itenirary somewhat. Here's what I propose:

Saturday 2/7: Arrive in Orlando, pm, visit Magic Kingdom to see fireworks and ride a few rides, see characters maybe?

Sunday 2/8: Animal Kingdom! Character Breakfast at Tusker House, 10:30am

Monday 2/9: Hollywood Studios (hopefully adding an ADR for 50's Prime Time Cafe)

Tuesday 2/10: OFF day. Relax at Resort. Downtown Disney 4:40pm reservation at Boma for Corey and me. Perhaps visit park for a few hours?

Wednesday 2/11: Magic Kingdom, 8:40am reservation for Katie at BBB

Thursday 2/12: Epcot

Friday 2/13: Revisit a park?

Saturday 2/14: Head home, maybe revisit a park in the morning because we can? ha.

Double Digit Countdown!!!

We are now down to 100 days until our trip! Woo hoo!!!!

I made our dining reservations today....we only have 2, but maybe if it gets closer and we have done well on saving up money we can add another in...but I wanted to at least get these two in. I have also devised a tentative plan for what parks for which days. I also made a reservation for Katie's Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique Makeover. I chose the boutique located in Cinderella's castle!!! Won't that be awesome?! So, here is our plan so far:

Saturday 2/7: Arrive in Orlando, pm

Sunday 2/8: Animal Kingdom! Character Breakfast at Tusker House, 10:30am

Monday 2/9: Hollywood Studios (hopefully adding an ADR for 50's Prime Time Cafe)

Tuesday 2/10: OFF day. Relax at Resort. 4:40pm reservation at Boma for Corey and me.

Wednesday 2/11: Magic Kingdom, 8:40am reservation for Katie at BBB

Thursday 2/12: Epcot

Friday 2/13: Split up between anything we didn't get done that we want to do.

Saturday 2/14: Head home


I am so excited! If you haven't heard of the boutique for little girls you should click on that link and see the video. Katie is going to LOVE it!! I just wish there was something comparable for boys to do. I guess he can go build a lightsaber or two. ha ha. I am also VERY excited about eating at Boma. Click on the link to check it out, but the food is supposed to be awesome! Corey and I plan to do that just the two of us because I am not sure it would be worth paying for the kids for adventurous type food, plus my parents aren't the most adventurous when it comes to food either, plus, hey, date night on vacation! woo hoo! It is located at the Animal Kingdom Lodge which I would love to see also! We chose the Tusker House character meal because our friends just visited with free dining and did pretty much every character meal and said for the money this was one of the nicest and Animal Kingdom is a pretty low key park so we don't have to worry about using our time eating there. We got the latest breakfast time available so it can be brunch!

Even though I only listed one park each day, we will have park hoppers, so any given day we may end up at Magic Kingdom watching the fireworks! I have also planned around the fact that Sundays and Mondays are the worst days for visiting Magic Kingdom so that is why it iw Wednesday before we end up going there. I have also taken into account which parks have morning and evening extra magic hours, since resort guests will take advantage of that and it may be more crowded at a park at that time. So, we will see...it is fun to at least be planning a bit more.