Pre-Trip The Great Big Nth Birthday Bash

Ever since I was a little girl growing up in Southern California, I've always wanted to go to Walt Disney World. However, my parents never took us when we were kids and we only ever got to go to Disneyland when other relatives were in town and we were hosting them.

Years later, I would first get my own Premium Annual Pass and then later become a Cast Member for the Disneyland Resort. Being a CSR at the Walt Disney Travel Company, I would spend my time between phone calls pricing out my own Walt Disney World vacations and dreaming of the day that I could save up enough money to go own my own.

Now, the time has come. My trip has been booked (but I'm still fiddling with details), I'm reading trip reports and viewing vlogs almost daily and I can't wait for my time in the world next year:

Who: Me and my spouse (whom I'm calling SurlyHobbit).

When: September 17, 2017 for a 5 night stay

Where: Port Orleans French Quarter

Why: I'm experiencing a major "divisible by 10" year birthday next year; my hubs' birthday is also in the same month, but much earlier. And then our wedding celebration anniversary is on October 13, so we're going to be celebrating that, too.

As noted in my new member post, here are some limitations I'm dealing with:

• The SurlyHobbit isn't such a huge Disney fan and he also is physically incapable of waking up before 11 am without being super cranky, so I'll be on my own for every morning of our trip.
• I'm being treated for a medical condition that results in me having difficulty walking long distances or standing for long periods of time, so I'll be renting a portable ECV from an offsite company. (I promise not to be one of THOSE ECV users.)

As a result, and also because we're both foodies, we would be super-excited if our trip coincided with the Food & Wine Festival and of course that's going to be a major factor in when and how long we decide to do EPCOT. Also, I have to ride Space Mountain at least twice on my actual birthday itself, and by gum, we are going to do a character meal (I'm leaning towards the Garden Grill).

Other Major Wish List Items:

• Do as many face character greets as my hobbit has the stomach for (did I mention he also hates things that are too kitschy and cheesy?). I love the idea of them because after watching videos I've realized that talking to them is like improv comedy. It sounds like they really get the whole "Yes, and..." idea.
• Make my hobbit groan at my favorite Pirates of the Carribbean one-liner. (Question: Is there a part of the ride where you see a skeleton captain in bed, or is that only Disneyland? If it's not there, then I can't say the joke and I'm going to have to remove this item.) ETA: Boo! I can't do this one now!
• Take a roundtrip on both the monorail and the Magic Kingdom railroad.
• Have at least one alcoholic beverage (or a sip of an alcoholic beverage) in each world showcase.
• Take a picture of a wallaby, if the Animal Kingdom has one.
• There was one vlog I saw (I think it was from the See Ya Reel Soon folks) where Mulan, Pocahantas, and Tiana were doing individual meet and greets in a bare corner in DHS. I would love to have a picture of me with all three of them together because it's a huge and important thing for me to know that there are Disney Princesses of Color and all of them are very awesome. If Elena (the newest princess) is there, too, even better. I would plotz if Moana was in the picture, too. ETA: Sounds like this is not possible, but if I do see more than two of them near each other, I'm going to ask and see if it would be possible.
• Do one lap of the bike route at Port Orleans? But only if my feet can hold out.
• Sing as much of "Alexander Hamilton" as I remember while waiting for the show at the Hall of Presidents.

I'm so excited about going. I hope I have a great time.

 

[PacNWTigger]

Looks like a great wish list. I hope that you were able to accomplish everything w/out too much grumbling from your hobbit. Following along.

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Not a "were," a "will be." We're going next September.

ETA: Hah! Found the countdown option. Now, how to use it...

 

[Tuvalu]

Sounds like you have a fun trip planned!
A few comments ~
You *may* be disappointed with WDW's version of Pirates of the Caribbean. (DL's is way better.) There is no Pirate in bed scene, no explosion at the end and the ride itself is shorter. It's still fun, but I wanted to give you a head's up.

I have never seen a wallaby at Animal Kingdom. You may have to go to Australia for that picture!

Characters at meet and greets, even in proximity to one another, will not join together for a "group shot" if requested. Characters do not "roam free" at WDW like they do at DL. They walk with a handler to their specific spot and stay there for the duration. You need to join a line (and lines form early) to meet each one individually.

Lastly, be cautious about believing vlogs you
watch. Most times those situations recorded are an exception and not the norm. People read or watch "magical moments" online and visit WDW with high expectations that those things will happen for them. They may, but most likely they will not. WDW is not equipped to make special things happen for EVERY guest. I found I am happier if I visit with no expectations, then am excited if I am surprised by something. Your own attitude will determine how much you enjoy your vacation. (I know of what I speak as I am a frequent visitor of WDW.)

I suspect you will have a wonderful time!!

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Thanks for the heads up on everything, especially about PotC. Now I can't do my favorite joke until we do another California trip. And since the hobbit hasn't gotten to choose our last two vacations, I need to let him have this next one.

The vlogs I've been watching have been from frequent WDW travelers, particularly the Tim Tracker and Adam Hatten ones. I think they give a pretty good indication about typical visits. And I think I'm going to keep reading more TRs here, yours included so that I can properly set my expectation levels.

Thanks again!

 

[Trisha Lynn]

It’s been a long time since I’ve been back to these forums. Not to get political, but it was really hard for me to get into the WDW planning spirit after the election results came out, especially since I knew that I wouldn’t be able to step into the Hall of Presidents for a very long time. The other part that hurt my trip planning spirit was that right after recovering from one bout of tendinitis, I rolled right into another one towards the end of January. Health problems ain’t no joke, you know.

However, my 180 day mark was coming up soon and so one evening, the Hobbit and I sat down to go through our lists of what places we’d like to eat at while we are at Walt Disney World. It took 4 hours to even get the list narrowed down to what restaurants we wanted on our “Must” list versus our “Kinda Want” lists. And then it took about another 4 to 8 hours to really go through the lists again to narrow down how we'd plan our day around what we ate. In the end though, this is what we planned and what we were able to book just today:

Arrive on Sunday, September 17 around 3 pm
Dinner at Disney Springs at Raglan Road at 6 pm
Drinks at either Trader Sam’s or Scat Cat’s Club

Monday, September 18
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park Day
Lunch at Sanaa at Animal Kingdom Lodge at 1:50 pm
Dinner at Yak & Yeti Restaurant at 6:45 pm
Drinks at either Trader Sam’s or Scat Cat’s Club (whichever one we didn’t do on Sunday night)

Tuesday, September 19
EPCOT Park Day
Snacks Grazing at almost all the Food & Wine booths
Dinner at Monsieur Paul at 5:30 pm
Drinks at Rose & Crown before Illuminations (we’ll see if there are tables, or we will grab a drink at the Pub and wander to find a spot)

Wednesday, September 20 (My Birthday Celebration)
Magic Kingdom Park and EPCOT Park Day
Late Lunch at Le Cellier at 2 pm
Late Dinner at The Garden Grill at 8 pm

Thursday, September 21 (His Birthday Celebration)
Magic Kingdom Park Day
Lunch at Skipper Canteen at 12:30 pm
Dinner at Artist’s Point at 6 pm

Friday, September 22 (Check Out of Port Orleans FQ)
Hollywood Studios and Disney Springs Day (Solo trip for me in the morning)
Meet Hobbit for Lunch at Tune-In Lounge at 1 pm
Head to Disney Springs for shopping
Return to POFQ for Dinner at Boatwright’s at 7:30 pm

Drive to airport hotel, fly out the next day

I can't believe how easy it was to get all of my choices online. I had to compromise on some times, but for the most part everything we wanted, we got. I hope the Fast Pass planning goes just as well.

 

[amjt660]

I like the plan so far.
I have been lucky enough to go to both WDW and DLR
I am glad you are able to finally experience both!!

Two very different park experiences.
I will not go into all the details but I think you will appreciate the ECV when you get there (everything is much more spread out)

Still a ways to go but I am looking forward to your TR in the fall

Max

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Still a ways to go but I am looking forward to your TR in the fall

So am I!

Another trip planning thing I did was to purchase a rolling walker, in the hopes that if I can work up to walking more and longer distances, then maybe my legs and feet muscles will be strong enough to where I won't need an ECV at WDW. I "test drove" my walker during the Women's March in St. Paul, and the week after is when I had my first bout of tendinitis this year. (Second was last week, got the okay to go back to work yesterday.) I will say that it was nice to be able to use it to take pressure off of my feet while standing and being able to sit on the padded seat each time the march stopped was nice.

Do you think it would be overkill to bring my folding travel cane and a rolling walker and have an ECV for the park?

Also, just before the 30 days date, I'm going to cancel the trip insurance, too, since it doesn't cover pre-existing conditions. In fact, no travel insurance covers pre-existing conditions. How do MaW kids and families do it?

 

[amjt660]

With respect to ECV vs Cane/Walker I think it would be overkill to bring both to the park on the same day.

Just a suggestion but I would think you could use the cane/walker in and around the resort and do the ECV at the parks.

Max

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Here I am again, just a few days before I can start booking our FastPass selections. Since my last post, I've had to deal with two more tendinitis flare-ups and I'm currently in a walking boot right now. I'm resigned to the fact that I am going to have to rent an ECV for my entire trip and now a lot of my trip planning is going to revolve around where can I plug in the ECV while I am in line for rides? Are there designated ECV charging areas, even if you don't have a Disney ECV?

I've sent the F&W kiosk menu list to the Hobbit and we may end up planning out the FastPasses later on this weekend. He doesn't seem enthused by Pandora and to be frank, I'm not that terribly excited about it either. If it had been a roller coaster instead of a VR screen ride, I would have liked to do the flight, but not if it's a VR ride. (That's Universal's territory!)

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Well, after lots of discussion about what routes we'd be likely to take around the parks by looking at the maps and also taking our ADRs into account, this is what I ended up booking for our Fast Passes and why:

Arrive on Sunday, September 17 around 10:15 am
After having been on a plane to Orlando in the winter for a board meeting where he tried to do work on a plane with kids going to Disney in the cabin, my Hobbit was not excited about being in economy class during our non-stop to Orlando, and he started pricing out business class tickets. At the same time, I also wanted to try and get to Florida earlier than 3 pm. And finally, he also went on a business trip to Japan for almost a week and a half in May and couldn't take me with him. As a result, he caved in on not just waking up earlier for a flight, but also coming with me to the parks every morning except for the last day. (Also, during his trip? I had another bout of tendinitis and our toilet flapper broke. Trying to hand-flush the toilet by reaching into the tank while balancing on one foot is not fun.) Business class tickets still cost too much, but we got an earlier flight anyway. I wonder if I can convince him to go into MK with me just for lunch before we head to Disney Springs for shopping and dinner? We'll need to drop our bags at the bell desk and our room won't be ready anyway... Then again, we may also decide to have lunch at a local non-chain restaurant along the way and also stop at a boutique yarn store. Any suggestions?

Dinner at Disney Springs at Raglan Road at 6 pm
Drinks at either Trader Sam’s or Scat Cat’s Club

Monday, September 18 - Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park Day
The plan here is to do the safari in the morning and then try to do it again at night so we can see different animals. If we're heading straight there, even without a Fast Pass, the line won't be too terrible. From Africa, we'll go through Discovery Island on our way back up to the entrance, take a bus to AKL for our lunch, and then come back, stopping by Pandora for the one ride I managed to FP for in there and then off to Asia for dinner and our show. Since he doesn't like roller coasters or getting wet, I'll be a single rider for EE and Kali River Rapids, so I only got a FP for one of them, and considering my new mobility issues, I really wanted to get good seats for the ROI show.

Lunch at Sanaa at Animal Kingdom Lodge at 1:50 pm
Expedition Everest FP at 3:40 pm - just me
Na'vi River Journey FP at 5:00 pm - just me, he's never seen Avatar and isn't interested in the franchise
Dinner at Yak & Yeti Restaurant at 6:45 pm
Rivers of Light FP at 7:35 pm
Drinks at either Trader Sam’s or Scat Cat’s Club (whichever one we didn’t do on Sunday night)

Tuesday, September 19 - EPCOT Park Day, aka "Eat All the Things" Day
Because my Hobbit is not a Disneyphile and in fact believes that the Disney corporation's stance on copyright has ruined it for everyone else who creates things, our EPCOT days became the part of the trip he was most interested in. I am not exaggerating when I say that it took us 12 hours over two days to decide which restaurants we'd book for ADRs based solely on the menus that were posted at the time because we went through the pros and cons of almost all of them. We started by finding the ADRs for our very top restaurants first, and then filled in the rest of the days as they came along. Our plan here is to start at Future World West and then go clockwise around the World Showcase starting with Mexico until we reach our dinner reservation. Then we'll make a beeline for the Rose & Crown so we can get some drinks before seeing Illuminations to end our night.

And the the Hobbit asked me if there were any F&W experiences where you could cook with an executive chef. I told him about the 3 hour experience that was either $250 or $300 each and he said that it was $50 more than what he'd consider spending for an experience like that. I, being way more frugal than that, totally balked and instead pointed him at the Morimoto's Asia experience on this day, but said that it might ruin our chances of getting back in time for Monsieur Paul. I think the jury may still be out on this one.

Living with the Land FP at 10:40 am
Spaceship Earth FP at 11:45 am
Snacks Grazing at almost all the Food & Wine booths between FW and France
Dinner at Monsieur Paul at 5:30 pm
Drinks at Rose & Crown before Illuminations
Illuminations FP at 8:40 pm

Wednesday, September 20 (My Birthday Celebration), aka our only 2-Park day - Magic Kingdom Park and EPCOT Park Day
I understand why they will only let you book other FPs after you've used your first 3. I get it. But if you see how our days have been going so far, this really translates into only really 2 FP choices which means I'm going to have to make some hard choices based on the wait times published in the MDE app. (Also, btw, a former colleague of mine said she helped build the first version of the app!) I decided that out of all the FP rides I wanted to go on, the one I wanted to desperately do the most was the Seven Dwarves Mine Train because they don't have it at DLR which would mean that it's entirely new to me. So our plan here is to head directly to Fantasyland and then work our way forwards back to Main Street so that we can have our late lunch in Canada, do some more F&W food grazing, have my character birthday dinner at the Garden Grill as well as check out FW East.

Question about the character meet and greets: If I want my hubs to make sure that good pictures of me are taken (yes, I got the Memory Maker, but I want video, too) do I need to have him do FPs for those as well?

Seven Dwarves Mine Train FP at 9:35 am
Meet Rapunzel and Tiana at Princess Fairytale Hall at 11:40 am - just me, woot for princesses of color!
Meet Mickey Mouse at Town Square Theater at 12:40 pm - just me
Late Lunch at Le Cellier at 2 pm
Late Dinner at The Garden Grill at 8 pm

Thursday, September 21 (His Birthday Celebration) - Magic Kingdom Park Day
Yes, I know that this is supposed to be his day, but half a day in MK is not enough. With having gotten most of the Fantasyland rides out of the way hopefully, we can spend our time in the rest of the park before leaving for his ADR and then coming back for the rest of the evening and the HEA fireworks.

Big Thunder Mountain FP at 9:25 am, just me
Lunch at Skipper Canteen at 12:30 pm
Jungle Cruise FP at 2:10 pm - lunch and a cruise, amirite?
Dinner at Artist’s Point at 6 pm
Space Mountain FP at 8:30 pm - Had to guarantee at least one Space Mountain ride and will try to pick up another earlier in the day depending on wait times.

Friday, September 22 (Check Out of Port Orleans FQ, but not leaving Orlando just yet) - Hollywood Studios (Solo trip for me in the morning) and Disney Springs Day
After spending so much time with me all week, I'm letting my Hobbit sleep in so that he can deal with our luggage while I go by myself to DHS, the park he was the least interested in seeing. This means I can go on almost any ride I want to, and of course, I made some strategic cuts. We're meeting at the Tune-In Lounge for lunch and perhaps some more things before returning to our hotel for one last dinner at Boatwright's, because why stay in a New Orleans-themed hotel and not have New Orleans-themed food?

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror FP at 9:50 am
Star Tours FP at 11:35 am
Meet Hobbit for Lunch at Tune-In Lounge at 1 pm
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster FP at 2:50 pm - just me, yes I know that there's single rider but I want to guarantee that I get to ride this at least once
Head to Disney Springs for shopping, maybe do that round-trip monorail tour before that?
Return to POFQ for Dinner at Boatwright’s at 7:30 pm

Drive to airport hotel, fly out the next day

Here's hoping our stomachs can survive all the rich food we'll be feeding it.

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Made the final payment ahead of the deadline. Woo hoo!

 

[Trisha Lynn]

I decided to start a Google Album to share my pictures when I write my TR, and you can see some of the stuff in there already:

https://goo.gl/photos/RfQtpUuCcr4fxYMo9

The first two pictures are of some positive feedback I received as a Cast Member (most proud of the second one) and the third is of me and my mom the first time I went to Disneyland. I think I may have been three.

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Today, I bought two sundresses from Kmart because I realized that the one I had was in very non-breathable fabric and that wasn't going to be such a good idea in the humid Florida heat. I'm hoping that I can find a very cute and somewhat affordable Disney sundress at Springs before our dinner at Artist's Point because I want to look nice for my Hobbit's birthday meal.

I've also decided that I'm going to wear one of my walking boots while riding the ECV because when I have to park it for meals and whatnot, I'm still going to need to try and walk to the front of the line and/or to my seat for a meal.

4 more days!

 

[amjt660]

I hope you have a great trip
Looking forward to seeing wdw from a true dlr vet who is doing their first trip

Max

 

[Trisha Lynn]

I am very nervous that it will be too much for me. I'm already thinking that we didn't take enough vacation days.

 

[Trisha Lynn]

Just checked in online for my flight. It's less than 24 hours now, and there's so much left to do. I also decided foolishly to perhaps vlog this trip because I think that there needs to be a vlog out there for folks who have non-apparent mobility disabilities on how they negotiate WDW.

 

[Trisha Lynn]

On the plane! May begin trip report when we get to POFQ.