Pre-Trip Party of 10, braving CBR construction

Hello! Our crew all went together back in 2012. Since our last trip we've added another nephew and are going to be 10-strong this time around.
Pictured L-R:
Mike (father-in-law)
James (nephew)
Karen (sister-in-law),
Cason (daughter)
Griffin (son)
Danny (bro-in-law)
Jack (nephew)
Patty (wife)
Alan (me)

I went to WDW a lot as a kid when we lived in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL and had APs. I spent a lot of years later away from the parks, but in 1998 (before the internet was any good) my wife and I spent our honeymoon at POFQ. Amazing to think we planned all of that over the phone! That trip reignited my love for the parks we've since instilled that love into our kids.

Since then we have taken our kids in 2007, 2010, and 2012 - and now we wanted to have one more trip out before our son Griffin graduates. We're combining free dining with the gift card offer at CBR construction to make it a more affordable trip. I've tried to keep an eye on what's going on at CBR and hope it doesn't affect things too much. It would take a lot to ruin the Disney magic for me, and we barely spend time at the resorts since we're at the parks all day and night...so shouldn't be a big deal. Right?? RIGHT!!

I'm the planner in the group, and everything is locked down. We're only doing two TS meals - dinner at Chef Mickey's and breakfast at 'Ohana. There are so many good CS options that we opted to save money and stick with free CS dining, which also allows a bit more spontaneity. Speaking of, this will be our first experience with FP+. I loved the old system of getting passes in the parks as you want them...and the experience of giving strangers unused FPs and vice versa. Some of that spontaneity is gone since we had to plan some things out...but we know how the system works and will do our best to maximize.

We've had a group chat thread going for awhile and a few weeks ago I started finding Disney related facts that correlate with the days until we leave. This was a bit harder than I thought but I have almost all of them nailed down. I'm sure there are errors based on old info, but I'm doing the best I can and the group has had fun with it.

 

[acollins876]

54 days: 54 million tons of dirt were brought in to build Epcot



53 days: 53 is the number of Herbie the Love Bug



52 million people are estimated to have watched as WDW was introduced to the world during a 90 minute NBC special in 1971.



51 days - 51K non-seasonal employees work at WDW.



50 days - 50 million people use the monorail each year, making it the most used monorail system in the world.



49 days - WDW has 49 rides/attractions and there's an unmet challenge to ride them all in one day.



48 days - There are 48 merchandise locations in the Magic Kingdom. This fact is not interesting in any way at all.



47 days - The Buzz Lightyear statue at the All Star Movies resort stands 47 feet tall. But we won't see that since we're Moderate people.

46 days - Walt last recorded the voice for Mickey Mouse in 1946.



45 days - Ellen's Energy Adventure lasts 45 minutes!!! Thankfully it closed for good on August 13th and is being replaced by a Guardians of the Galaxy themed attraction.



44 days - The entire property of WDW is estimated at 44 square miles, twice the size of Manhattan. After Disneyland's opening and success Walt was disappointed that all the land around the parks was bought by other companies capitalizing on Disneyland's success. To avoid the same situation with WDW the company formed many shell companies to buy land in central Florida. This prevented the sellers from knowing who was buying and jacking up the prices. One company, Reedy Creek Improvement District, still has an imprint around WDW with fire stations and other utilities still carrying the name.

43 days - WDW recycles 43,000 tons of waste each year, almost enough to fill up Space Mountain. Dang hippies!



42 days - Swiss Family Treehouse's structural support is buried 42 feet into the ground. Frankly, this thing is on its last legs and just takes up space. The boys might want to climb around in it though. I did love the classic movie though. We still have it on VHS and it's super heavy for some reason.



41 days - 41 vehicles can be on Kilimanjaro Safari at one time. They are kept separated by puck shaped sensors buried all along the course.



Happy Eclipse Day! Bonus fact - the audio-animatronic performer at Cosmic Ray's counter service restaurant is named Sonny Eclipse.

40 days - You travel 40mph down Splash Mountain. Too bad it's closed for refurbishment. It's my #1 favorite WDW attraction.



39 days - The Polynesian resort covers 39 acres and was one of the original hotels built at WDW. We'll be there for a character breakfast at 'Ohana on October 2nd.



38 days - WDW has 38 hotels with 34,000 rooms. We're using 2 of them.



37 days - Imagineers used an erector set to develop the lift system for Soarin', which lifts 37 tons during each ride cycle. Puddy from Seinfeld stars in the pre-show video.

36 days - There are 36 hidden cameras on Splash Mountain so cast members can monitor guests on the ride. If you haven't ridden recently, it's a REALLY long boat/dark ride with a few short drops and one big one. Ugh I'm so bummed it's going to be closed!

 

[acollins876]

35 days - Epcot is 35 years old on October 1st. We were there for Epcot's 30th and we'll be there for the 35th. We're going to Magic Kingdom this day, but I plan to get over to Epcot that afternoon/night - along with whoever wants to come along!

34 days - Fireworks launch from 34 locations around World Showcase Lagoon during the nightly IllumiNATIONS show at Epcot. You can see the show from anywhere in World Showcase and also from some neighboring resorts, like, such as Caribbean Beach Resort.

33 days - This is at Disneyland in California, but it's the most relevant fact for 33. There's a (not so well kept) secret club in the New Orleans Square land of Disneyland called Club 33. The club's membership fee is $50K and there's a 14 year waiting list. Whatevs - we have Masters tickets.

32 days - 32 guests can ride Dumbo at one time (although now they have double Dumbos). Speaking of Double Dumbo, this accidental, glorious moment happened 5 years ago.

31 days - 31 guests can ride each jungle cruise boat, which are designed as replicas from an old movie called The African Queen. The ride and skipper's spiel are never as dull as this fact has been.

 

[monykalyn]

That's a big group to plan for! When does your son graduate? Gets harder to plan trips the older they get!
CBR is torn up- but going into that knowing major construction is going on is half the battle. And the gift card plus free dining is a deal. My dtr is doing a college program there right now (custodial) so if you see a very tall girl 6'2") she's mine!(Alysa from University of Arkansas).
Hope you get over to Satul'i canteen in Pandora- can't believe that's a CS. Maybe by time you guys go the mobile ordering will have figured out how to take DP credits!
Fun facts!

 

[acollins876]

That's a big group to plan for! When does your son graduate? Gets harder to plan trips the older they get!
CBR is torn up- but going into that knowing major construction is going on is half the battle. And the gift card plus free dining is a deal. My dtr is doing a college program there right now (custodial) so if you see a very tall girl 6'2") she's mine!(Alysa from University of Arkansas).
Hope you get over to Satul'i canteen in Pandora- can't believe that's a CS. Maybe by time you guys go the mobile ordering will have figured out how to take DP credits!
Fun facts!

Yeah, it's a bit stressful planning for 10. My family and my father-in-law can go hard in the parks all day, but we also have to keep the little ones in mind. They left all the planning to me (which is totally fine by me) so I went ahead and planned everything all together (meals, FP+...everything) and they can drop off and go rest as they need to. Again, I don't like having to pre-plan so much with FP+, but it does force me to plan out the day. Who knows if we'll stick to it, but I mapped out our days using www.touringplans.com.

Our son graduates this year, in May. Both he and our daughter (17 and 14) still love WDW and are stoked about this trip. No growing out of WDW in sight for them. Is your daughter at CBR?

Flametree BBQ is one of our favorite CS (and a killer value on the dining plan) but the Pandora place looks interesting.

 

[acollins876]

Our MagicBands came in yesterday. Feels totally weird that we've never used them, but it's been 5 years since we've been to WDW. Feels like it hasn't been that long. I've had to re-train myself and learn the new system to come up with a good plan for our group. I used www.touringplans.com to build some routing that will factor in our FP+ and meal times. That site is simply brilliant!

Saturday 9/30 - We planned to arrive on 10/1 but once free dining launched we backed our trip up by a day to get in on the promo. The original plan for this trip was to rent a HUGE RV and stay at Ft Wilderness. That would have been...interesting. Very glad we upgraded to CBR even though it's under construction. Our son runs cross country and has a meet that morning. About half of our group will leave early and the rest of us will come after the meet, about a 10 hour drive from middle TN. We don't have the race times yet but I'm hoping pretty hard for an early time. I'll advise our early arrivals to use meal credits over at Disney Springs or another resort for dinner.

Sunday 10/1 - MK - Had to start here to get everyone the traditional WDW experience. We're going to work our way around from the left side to get the little ones some more gentle experiences before trying anything more thrilling. My nephew Jack is 10 now, but when he rode Space Mountain as a 5 year old he came off and said "I went upside down!!" Later he said it was "boring" and didn't want to do it again. I think it scared him...so we'll want to ease them in and work up some bravery so they'll do as much as possible. I'm also encouraging D&K to get a double stroller since the younger ones will need some rest from time to time. We'll do a CS lunch somewhere in MK. This day is the 35th anniversary of Epcot so I'll plan to get over there along with whoever wants to come with me. We were there for the 30th but only my son and I actually went to Epcot that day.
FP+: Peter Pan 11:10am, BTMRR 12:35pm, SDMT 1:45pm

Monday 10/2 - Epcot - We have breakfast at 'Ohana and then try to follow our touring plan. We'll probably split up for meals a little bit since some of us are more adventurous than others. On our last trip I got dinner at Tangierine Cafe and met up with the rest of my family at the American pavilion .
FP+: SSE 11:25am, Mission Space 1:15pm, Frozen 3:45pm

Tuesday 10/3 - MK again - We'll work our way around going the other way and either follow the touring plan, or possibly ditch it altogether since the crowd calendars are predicting light crowds, part of why we love WDW at this time of year. We'll have dinner that night at Chef Mickey's right when the park closes for MNSSHP.
FP+: SDMT 9:30am, Peter Pan 11:50am, BTMRR 3:30pm

Wednesday 10/4 - AK - We'll simply try to do everything here in one day. Our other MK days fall on Epcot's 35th and a MNSSHP day, so we'll get back over to MK for Happily Ever After. The food in Pandora looks interesting, but we LOVE Flametree BBQ (and it's such a good value on the CS plan).
FP+: Everest 11:15am, FoP 1:15pm, Safari 2:25pm

Thursday 10/5 - DHS - We'll also try to knock it all out in one day. Our touring plan has us finishing early in the afternoon so we'll see if we want to repeat a few things. Will try to catch Star Wars fireworks at 8:30pm and maybe a late dinner at Disney Springs. I'm really happy to have free CS dining because there's so much variety, but IMO DHS is the weak link in the chain. This will probably be kind of a "blah" eating day.
FP+: Toy Story 9:50am, Star Tours 11:30am, ToT 2:15pm

Friday 10/6 - Our last day. I made some FP+ at AK if we want to do FoP again (since I've heard it's amazing). We can wrap up early and head to other parks. I'm guessing we'll all split up.
FP+: FoP 9:30am, Everest 10:30am, Dinosaur 11:40am (don't know if we'll stick around to do them all).

Also, I hate to let real life get in the way of a Disney trip, but the USMNT is playing Panama this night IN Orlando in a can't lose game. Might try to watch it even though we're in the World. I just realized this conflict last night so I really haven't thought about it much yet.

 

[acollins876]

I'm a little stumped on a good/interesting fact for our 8 day mark. ToT can runs 8 elevators, but I already have another ToT fact coming up. Anyone know any facts related to 8 off the top of their head?

 

[acollins876]

More countdown:
30 days - World Showcase at Epcot was originally supposed to have 30 pavilions. It currently has 11 pavilions. There have long been rumors of a Brazil addition, but the most likely addition will be Spain, possibly to coincide with the release of Gigantic in 2020, set in Spain.

29 days - Cinderella Castle originally was designed to have 29 towers. Isn't it iconic? Don'tcha think? The castle at Disneyland isn't nearly as big and belongs to another princess. Which one?

28 days - Space Mountain coasters travel 28.7mph, and according to 5 year old Jack they even go upside down!

27 days - The tank in The Seas with Nemo and friends is 27 feet deep. The highlight of this pavilion (to me) is Turtle Talk with Crush.

26 days - 26,000 feet of lights outline World Showcase's 11 pavilions. They light up and flash during IllumiNATIONS.

25 days - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad feels fast, but it only goes 25mph. WDW's version is also 25% bigger than the Disneyland version. I hope I can sit where Dele Alli sat!!!

24 days - 24 Mouseketeers made up the original Mickey Mouse Club when it debuted in 1955. Everyone knows some of the recent Mouseketeers went on to be pretty famous right?

23 days - The official fan club for all things Disney is called D23. It's home to a truly enthusiastic fan community and hosts an annual convention (D23 Expo) where Disney makes all of its public announcements about movies, changes to the parks, cruise line, etc.