My apologies ahead of time - first pre-trip report ever! Longtime reader and follower of this amazing community and thought it would be fun (maybe for my own selfish reasons) to post a pre-trip report for an upcoming trip. Not a lot of fancy pictures and my amazing sense of humor may not be highlighted in this report BUT I can guarantee that if things go as planned, that amazing sense of humor with extraordinary delivery will be extremely entertaining in a full trip report! Quick background, I'm a WDW ADDICT and absolutely love everything about it. I'm one of those "super cool 40 year old guys who acts like a wierdo when they are at WDW". I accept and embrace it. I am also a CRAZY planner and want to leave no detail as something that might be a surprise. Plan early and plan often! My park bag is probably one of the best around - seriously - you'd be like "What the what???" if you saw my rig! Only saying all of that to validate myself as someone who takes this very, very (maybe too much???) seriously. The planning and writing a report like this makes the Disney experience even more fun for someone like me! So, on to the nuts and bolts of what you may think is an awfully dry pre-trip report...
WHO: It'll be me and our 7 (he would loudly interject that he's seven AND A HALF!) year old son. He has many, many nicknames and one of the best ones that I believe he has (maybe it is because I bestowed it upon him) is "The Dude". This is a guy's only trip that has been thought about, debated and contested with the remainder of the family including The Dude's two sisters (14 and 12) and his mom/my wife. The reason for the trip is outlined in the "WHY" below... So, just the two men of the family heading to WDW for some amazing times! Plus, my wife strongly dislikes any theme park (I still love her!!!) so she quickly eliminated herself from tagging along.
WHAT: I wanted to hit on all the 5 W's but I don't think "WHAT" is applicable. It's a vacation. That's "what" it is!
WHEN: We're heading down from Wisconsin on August 22nd and returning on August 26th. It's going to be a bit of a whirlwind visit with a lot packed into it but luckily we are not strangers to The World. We enjoy knowing that no matter what we see or don't see the vacation is still going to be epic!
WHERE: We'll be hitting DS on the 22nd, MK on the 23rd, HS/EPCOT on the 24th and Legoland on the 25th. We both understand and completely accept that we may not get to see everything we want to on the 24th and want to focus mainly on HS that day - mainly Star Wars. We're staying at CBR and taking advantage of the AMAZING "Construction Credit" (we could care less about the construction related impact - as long as the room is clean, is sort of close to the bus stop, has a bathroom, two beds and the door locks we'll be in good shape. We really only plan on eating breakfast in the room and sleeping.) and also free dining (QS). We'll be renting a car on the 25th for transportation to and from Legoland.
WHY: The topic that started it all! I took our two daughters for the Grand Opening of Diagon Alley in 2014 and left The Dude behind simply because he was too young to really enjoy it (another way of saying that would be that he complained if he had to walk 25 feet unassisted when he was that age and he would have been a complete saboteur of any fun - his shoes hurt, his socks didn't feel right, the breeze made him itchy, the grass wasn't green enough, the sidewalk was too hard, other kids are eating ice cream somewhere in the world - and many other reasons why he demanded that he didn't need to walk more than 25 feet). THEN my wife and I had a brilliant idea to bring our daughters to NYC the following year for shopping, Broadway and sightseeing and leave The Dude with Grandma (for the same reason mentioned above). He was neither entertained with that plan nor was he willing to allow it to go unnoticed. In his mind (and I agree with him) he was owed "something". That something ranged from a trip to the Mall of America all the way to a 7 day vacation of his choice. We liked the Mall of America idea but didn't like the 7 day "wherever" option so we wanted to bring some clarity to the situation! My wife and I decided to surprise him with this trip. He's a Lego and Star Wars addict so we could check those boxes. The last time he went to WDW was in 2014 so it's been awhile and he LOVED the experience (duh???). Additionally, I wanted to seek out the most cost effective way to make a trip like this happen and if it financially made sense then it'd be booked. $75/night Construction Credit, free QS dining, free airfare (using skymiles), free 1 day car rental (from travel points) and a few other deals made it a no-brainer for us! This is going to be a memory maker vacation for The Dude!
Some other quick notes:
FastPass+:
MK:
Splash Mountain
Peter Pan
Seven Dwarfs
HS:
Star Tours
Toy Story Mainia
Tower of Terror
ADR:
T-REX
Crystal Palace
Sci-Fi Dine In
We have a strategy in place to get some very specific pressed pennies and The Dude has a small shopping list of ideas not only for himself but also for things that we wants to look for to surprise his sisters and mom.
So, that's about it! We've got some matching/complimenting t-shirts planned and have our days at MK, HS and EPCOT pretty much planned out (to be honest, "pretty much" is a lie - I'm a self-admitting planning freak and I believe some OCD tendencies come out when I can plan like this). Our plan for MK has us hitting everything we want by 6:15 p.m. and the park is open until 11:00 p.m. so we'll have plenty of time to hang out afterwards and shop/eat/re-ride. We also want to get to EPCOT by 2:00 p.m. on the next day - any comments about the likelihood of picking up a 4th or 5th FP+ for Test Track or Soarin' for those times after our 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. FP+ at HS? It's going to be HOT - we're ready for it and I am planning on at least two breaks outside of our ADR times. Legoland is going to be pretty much "we're here let's see what it's all about!". My expectations are low, The Dude's are high. Lot's of pictures will be taken and I plan on following up with a full trip report afterwards.
Looking for any and all comments from the community. Would love to know if anyone has rented a vehicle from the Car Care Center and returned it after hours - any issues getting an Uber back to your resort? Anything else you guys care to share or provide insight on? Would love any feedback you might have!!!
WHO: It'll be me and our 7 (he would loudly interject that he's seven AND A HALF!) year old son. He has many, many nicknames and one of the best ones that I believe he has (maybe it is because I bestowed it upon him) is "The Dude". This is a guy's only trip that has been thought about, debated and contested with the remainder of the family including The Dude's two sisters (14 and 12) and his mom/my wife. The reason for the trip is outlined in the "WHY" below... So, just the two men of the family heading to WDW for some amazing times! Plus, my wife strongly dislikes any theme park (I still love her!!!) so she quickly eliminated herself from tagging along.
WHAT: I wanted to hit on all the 5 W's but I don't think "WHAT" is applicable. It's a vacation. That's "what" it is!
WHEN: We're heading down from Wisconsin on August 22nd and returning on August 26th. It's going to be a bit of a whirlwind visit with a lot packed into it but luckily we are not strangers to The World. We enjoy knowing that no matter what we see or don't see the vacation is still going to be epic!
WHERE: We'll be hitting DS on the 22nd, MK on the 23rd, HS/EPCOT on the 24th and Legoland on the 25th. We both understand and completely accept that we may not get to see everything we want to on the 24th and want to focus mainly on HS that day - mainly Star Wars. We're staying at CBR and taking advantage of the AMAZING "Construction Credit" (we could care less about the construction related impact - as long as the room is clean, is sort of close to the bus stop, has a bathroom, two beds and the door locks we'll be in good shape. We really only plan on eating breakfast in the room and sleeping.) and also free dining (QS). We'll be renting a car on the 25th for transportation to and from Legoland.
WHY: The topic that started it all! I took our two daughters for the Grand Opening of Diagon Alley in 2014 and left The Dude behind simply because he was too young to really enjoy it (another way of saying that would be that he complained if he had to walk 25 feet unassisted when he was that age and he would have been a complete saboteur of any fun - his shoes hurt, his socks didn't feel right, the breeze made him itchy, the grass wasn't green enough, the sidewalk was too hard, other kids are eating ice cream somewhere in the world - and many other reasons why he demanded that he didn't need to walk more than 25 feet). THEN my wife and I had a brilliant idea to bring our daughters to NYC the following year for shopping, Broadway and sightseeing and leave The Dude with Grandma (for the same reason mentioned above). He was neither entertained with that plan nor was he willing to allow it to go unnoticed. In his mind (and I agree with him) he was owed "something". That something ranged from a trip to the Mall of America all the way to a 7 day vacation of his choice. We liked the Mall of America idea but didn't like the 7 day "wherever" option so we wanted to bring some clarity to the situation! My wife and I decided to surprise him with this trip. He's a Lego and Star Wars addict so we could check those boxes. The last time he went to WDW was in 2014 so it's been awhile and he LOVED the experience (duh???). Additionally, I wanted to seek out the most cost effective way to make a trip like this happen and if it financially made sense then it'd be booked. $75/night Construction Credit, free QS dining, free airfare (using skymiles), free 1 day car rental (from travel points) and a few other deals made it a no-brainer for us! This is going to be a memory maker vacation for The Dude!
Some other quick notes:
FastPass+:
MK:
Splash Mountain
Peter Pan
Seven Dwarfs
HS:
Star Tours
Toy Story Mainia
Tower of Terror
ADR:
T-REX
Crystal Palace
Sci-Fi Dine In
We have a strategy in place to get some very specific pressed pennies and The Dude has a small shopping list of ideas not only for himself but also for things that we wants to look for to surprise his sisters and mom.
So, that's about it! We've got some matching/complimenting t-shirts planned and have our days at MK, HS and EPCOT pretty much planned out (to be honest, "pretty much" is a lie - I'm a self-admitting planning freak and I believe some OCD tendencies come out when I can plan like this). Our plan for MK has us hitting everything we want by 6:15 p.m. and the park is open until 11:00 p.m. so we'll have plenty of time to hang out afterwards and shop/eat/re-ride. We also want to get to EPCOT by 2:00 p.m. on the next day - any comments about the likelihood of picking up a 4th or 5th FP+ for Test Track or Soarin' for those times after our 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. FP+ at HS? It's going to be HOT - we're ready for it and I am planning on at least two breaks outside of our ADR times. Legoland is going to be pretty much "we're here let's see what it's all about!". My expectations are low, The Dude's are high. Lot's of pictures will be taken and I plan on following up with a full trip report afterwards.
Looking for any and all comments from the community. Would love to know if anyone has rented a vehicle from the Car Care Center and returned it after hours - any issues getting an Uber back to your resort? Anything else you guys care to share or provide insight on? Would love any feedback you might have!!!
