Pre-Trip A (NOT SO) well planned family affair- September 2017

--- Well this was supposed to be a family trip but when you start plannning over a year in advance, things come up! So it's just me and my #1 (Billy), Celebrating our 4th anniversary :inlove:

For details on how everything came to be, you can read below ;):D


Who: Myself (Ciara), my boyfriend (Billy)

STUDIO_HBDIRECTORICONNC_7466888756.jpeg


Where: Pop century!

When: September 13th-22nd



 
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Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We are going to try Spice Road and 50's Prime for the first time when we go. We will be there around the same time at CSR. We are going to try Maya Grill as well.

Say Hi! If you see us around. Seems we may cross paths a couple times :) I hope you have a magical time!
 

Trisha Lynn

Well-Known Member
Wow, we didn't pick the same restaurants and times as you at all. But since we're going to be at EPCOT for 1.5 days noshing on all of the Food & Wine offerings, we're likely to bump into each other at the park. And congrats on the new jobs for you and your family.
 

amjt660

Well-Known Member
178 days! ADR's are booked :D

Spice road table 8:10pm
Raglan Road 9:15pm
Mama Melrose 7:55pm
50's prime time 7:50pm
Ohana 8:25am (really wanted closer to 9am so i will keep trying to change this one)
Teppan Edo 8:50pm
Garden grill 2:15pm
BOG 8:00am
Cali grill 6:00pm
We were pleasantly surprised in December with Mama Melrose
When my girls were younger (early 2000's) it was our go to but we found the quality lacking.
We tried it again and enjoyed the food quality and the atmosphere.
Have a great trip
Looking forward to the TR in the fall

Max
 

Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Disney has changed the animal kingdom hours already! From 7pm everyday to 9pm everyday. I went ahead and changed our raglan road reservation to 4:30pm. Its gonna be an early day and i think it will work much better than having a super late dinner! Excited that the park will be open later :D
 

fractal

Well-Known Member
Disney has changed the animal kingdom hours already! From 7pm everyday to 9pm everyday. I went ahead and changed our raglan road reservation to 4:30pm. Its gonna be an early day and i think it will work much better than having a super late dinner! Excited that the park will be open later :D

Good news!
 

Zipadeelady

Well-Known Member
Disney has changed the animal kingdom hours already! From 7pm everyday to 9pm everyday. I went ahead and changed our raglan road reservation to 4:30pm. Its gonna be an early day and i think it will work much better than having a super late dinner! Excited that the park will be open later :D
Ciara Where Are You!!!? I need to know where you found the calendar for AK!!!!:p

edit~ Ok... I'll quit panicking. I saw it on wdwmagic. :hilarious:
 
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Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We were pleasantly surprised in December with Mama Melrose
When my girls were younger (early 2000's) it was our go to but we found the quality lacking.
We tried it again and enjoyed the food quality and the atmosphere.
Have a great trip
Looking forward to the TR in the fall

Max

Great to hear :D I'm very excited to try it! I've seen/heard about it for awhile and I hope we will enjoy it! Thank you :)
 

Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We booked our flights last night and i don't know about you guys but for me that's when its REAL:D:D

We don't pay extra for the flights to be cancel-able so once we book them there is no going back ;) Originally, We were going to wait to book our flights until they released free dining. BUT i did some calculations and realized even if they don't, its not for our dates, whatever, we can still make it work! Basically getting free dining allows us to stay at the Coronado for the same price we can stay at a value or an offsite hotel and pay out of pocket for food. So either way we will still go!

We went back and forth about two different flights, one arriving later than the other, and decided on the earlier. Its a HUGE gamble if our room will be ready or not but if we fly in later we will for sure lose half the day. Trying to have as much time in the world as possible :happy:Coming all the way from Oregon and our schedules it always works best to do a red-eye flight. We fly out of Portland at 6:20pm and arrive in Orlando at 5:01am. Fingers quadruple crossed our room will be ready like last time and we can nap, otherwise we will be "those people" sleeping by the pool at 6am :hilarious: Our flight home is at 6:40pm which is pretty much the latest flight i could get.

I made a couple changes to our ADRS. I was able to get an 8:50 at OHANA, i changed Teppan Edo dinner to a lunch @ 1pm, and moved garden grill closer to 3pm. I've been trying to grab a lunch ADR at BOG but am not having any luck! Not sure why i didn't think to book this the day i did the others

Lastly, Does anyone know when they release tickets for MNSSHP? Hoping to buy tickets when the price is lowest and i think i heard they increase as the party fills up. We want to go Sunday Sept 17th, hoping it wont be as busy as the other days of the week.

On a Disney high today from our trip being officially, no going back, booked :D:D:D:D
 
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Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I feel like this whole PTR should just start from this post. LOL so many changes since we first started planning.

A little storytime...

As excited as we were to stay at Coronado, our excitement was quickly squashed when rumors started to fly about free dining. 1- we weren't sure if our dates would be included, 2- moderates were possibly now getting quick service not standard dining. Now i know free dining isn't a better deal for everyone but Billy eats a lot, i like table service meals, for us its a great deal! Paying for food or paying to upgrade the dining plan AND staying at Coronado would put us way over budget. April 24th came and it was official, free dining was for our dates, but only quick service for moderates. We knew this meant we needed to downgrade, so back to POP we went, but wait... There was NO availability. There was no availability for any values with free dining :eek: We already bought our flights and really could no longer afford Coronado, so i was desperate to take anything i could get. We booked a room at All star sports with a room discount, while it wasn't perfect, it would allow us to stay onsite and pay for food (no desserts :() without going over budget. I knew there was a chance that POP might open up within the next couple weeks but we had already waited weeks for the offer to come out, i had spent all day trying to just get through to someone on the phone, was not able to modify online. I was kind of done and went to bed defeated. The next morning Billy was up super early for work, he woke me up so i thought id check the WDW site just to see if there were any changes. Lo and behold there were! Not only was POP showing available but so was Allstar movies and sports! I really did not think it would happen so fast! Still could not modify online but I had 15 minutes until the phone lines opened and my hopes were high. I swear i must have been the very first person to call Disney that morning, because i got right through to a nice lady. Nice lady tells me that there is nothing showing on her end and i ask if i need to just cancel my old reservation and make a new one because it was showing on my end. She puts me on hold and when she comes back, she tells me okay she can do free dining at POP. WOOHOO! She goes over all the details and its all sounding good, then she reads my balance... it seemed low but i thought eh i can look into it later. After i get off the phone i cant stop thinking the balance and how that number came to be and now i am worried she messed something up. Its 4am my time and i had to get back to bed so i decided it was fine and if something was in fact messed up i could deal with it later. Just then i get an email with the confirmation of the changes "Great this will set it straight!" As i read the confirmation i see nothing about dining, nothing at all. Our tickets were wrong too, not a big deal, that i knew i could fix later. But i could not sleep without confirmation we got free dining, so i call back, 90 minutes plus phone wait. Okay im being crazy i tell myself, its fine and i need sleep. The second i got to work , i jumped on the computer and looked at my reservations. It was now showing i could modify online, YES! When i go into modify i see POP but still see no free dining, just a room discount and now the total makes sense. I am not sure how it happened but basically she never added free dining just left the room discount. Its now 8:30am and i am worried the deal is gone. But it wasn't! I was able to change everything online and can now say i'm sleeping easy knowing our plans are set :)

SOOOO HERE WEEEEE GOOOOOOOOO :D Lets update these

Who: ME! (Ciara) and my boyfriend (Billy)

What: Our 4 year anniversary trip to WDW

Where: POP century

When: September 13th-22nd


9/12
We are crazy people who like to fly red-eye
Off work by 4pm, flight takes off at 6:20pm

9/13
Arrive at mco @5:00am
DME to resort
Fingers crossed room will be ready and we can nap
Typhoon Lagoon
Epcot
Dinner @ Spice road table

9/14
Rope drop Avatar land
Late lunch/early dinner @ Raglan road
Back to AK for nighttime shows

9/15
Epcot
HS
Dinner @ Mama melrose

9/16
HS
Dinner @ 50's prime time

9/17
Breakfast @ OHANA
MK
MNSSHP(no tickets yet)

9/18
Blizzard beach
Epcot (food and wine)

9/19
MK
Lunch @ Teppan Edo
Epcot (food and wine)

9/20
AK? (usually a one day park, unsure if we will want to go back for half day)
MK
Dinner @ Chef mickeys*
9/21
Our Anniversary!
Breakfast @ BOG
MK
Afternoon tea at Grand Floridan(may cancel, dont want to over do it)
Dinner @ Cali Grill
MK

9/22
Plans are up in the air, will probably make us some HS fastpasses
Leave WDW @ 3pm :(
Flight leaves 6 something

*I took out garden grill for chef mickeys, just worked better for our plans.
 
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kaitertot5249

Well-Known Member
Oh my goodness!
After i get off the phone i cant stop thinking the balance and how that number came to be and now i am worried she messed something up. Its 4am my time and i had to get back to bed so i decided it was fine and if something was in fact messed up i could deal with it later. Just then i get an email with the confirmation of the changes "Great this will set it straight!" As i read the confirmation i see nothing about dining, nothing at all. Our tickets were wrong too, not a big deal, that i knew i could fix later. But i could not sleep without confirmation we got free dining, so i call back, 90 minutes plus phone wait.
This would have stressed me out to no end :arghh: I'm glad everything ended up working out for you though!

You're plan sounds amazing, I hope that the rest of your countdown to Disney goes by without any major changes!
 

Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Oh my goodness!

This would have stressed me out to no end :arghh: I'm glad everything ended up working out for you though!

You're plan sounds amazing, I hope that the rest of your countdown to Disney goes by without any major changes!

I definitely breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. Thank you! I think all of our big changes are out of the way, or i hope! :joyfull:
 

Mr Toad

Well-Known Member
I did almost the exact same thing you did...wait for the discounts to drop for September. Except we ended up at All Star Music. Mainly so my daughter can swim at the 3 Caballeros pool!
I feel like this whole PTR should just start from this post. LOL so many changes since we first started planning.

A little storytime...

As excited as we were to stay at Coronado, our excitement was quickly squashed when rumors started to fly about free dining. 1- we weren't sure if our dates would be included, 2- moderates were possibly now getting quick service not standard dining. Now i know free dining isn't a better deal for everyone but Billy eats a lot, i like table service meals, for us its a great deal! Paying for food or paying to upgrade the dining plan AND staying at Coronado would put us way over budget. April 24th came and it was official, free dining was for our dates, but only quick service for moderates. We knew this meant we needed to downgrade, so back to POP we went, but wait... There was NO availability. There was no availability for any values with free dining :eek: We already bought our flights and really could no longer afford Coronado, so i was desperate to take anything i could get. We booked a room at All star sports with a room discount, while it wasn't perfect, it would allow us to stay onsite and pay for food (no desserts :() without going over budget. I knew there was a chance that POP might open up within the next couple weeks but we had already waited weeks for the offer to come out, i had spent all day trying to just get through to someone on the phone, was not able to modify online. I was kind of done and went to bed defeated. The next morning Billy was up super early for work, he woke me up so i thought id check the WDW site just to see if there were any changes. Lo and behold there were! Not only was POP showing available but so was Allstar movies and sports! I really did not think it would happen so fast! Still could not modify online but I had 15 minutes until the phone lines opened and my hopes were high. I swear i must have been the very first person to call Disney that morning, because i got right through to a nice lady. Nice lady tells me that there is nothing showing on her end and i ask if i need to just cancel my old reservation and make a new one because it was showing on my end. She puts me on hold and when she comes back, she tells me okay she can do free dining at POP. WOOHOO! She goes over all the details and its all sounding good, then she reads my balance... it seemed low but i thought eh i can look into it later. After i get off the phone i cant stop thinking the balance and how that number came to be and now i am worried she messed something up. Its 4am my time and i had to get back to bed so i decided it was fine and if something was in fact messed up i could deal with it later. Just then i get an email with the confirmation of the changes "Great this will set it straight!" As i read the confirmation i see nothing about dining, nothing at all. Our tickets were wrong too, not a big deal, that i knew i could fix later. But i could not sleep without confirmation we got free dining, so i call back, 90 minutes plus phone wait. Okay im being crazy i tell myself, its fine and i need sleep. The second i got to work , i jumped on the computer and looked at my reservations. It was now showing i could modify online, YES! When i go into modify i see POP but still see no free dining, just a room discount and now the total makes sense. I am not sure how it happened but basically she never added free dining just left the room discount. Its now 8:30am and i am worried the deal is gone. But it wasn't! I was able to change everything online and can now say i'm sleeping easy knowing our plans are set :)

SOOOO HERE WEEEEE GOOOOOOOOO :D Lets update these

Who: ME! (Ciara) and my boyfriend (Billy)

What: Our 4 year anniversary trip to WDW

Where: POP century

When: September 13th-22nd


9/12
We are crazy people who like to fly red-eye
Off work by 4pm, flight takes off at 6:20pm

9/13
Arrive at mco @5:00am
DME to resort
Fingers crossed room will be ready and we can nap
Typhoon Lagoon
Epcot
Dinner @ Spice road table

9/14
Rope drop Avatar land
Late lunch/early dinner @ Raglan road
Back to AK for nighttime shows

9/15
Epcot
HS
Dinner @ Mama melrose

9/16
HS
Dinner @ 50's prime time

9/17
Breakfast @ OHANA
MK
MNSSHP(no tickets yet)

9/18
Blizzard beach
Epcot (food and wine)

9/19
MK
Lunch @ Teppan Edo
Epcot (food and wine)

9/20
AK? (usually a one day park, unsure if we will want to go back for half day)
MK
Dinner @ Chef mickeys*
9/21
Our Anniversary!
Breakfast @ BOG
MK
Afternoon tea at Grand Floridan(may cancel, dont want to over do it)
Dinner @ Cali Grill
MK

9/22
Plans are up in the air, will probably make us some HS fastpasses
Leave WDW @ 3pm :(
Flight leaves 6 something

*I took out garden grill for chef mickeys, just worked better for our plans.
 

prfctlyximprct

Well-Known Member
Just reading all that you went through has me biting my nails! I swear disney planning is so stressful but so worth it in the end! Glad you were able to get the free dining! And back at Pop! I think it was meant to be!! :) Can't wait for your trip!!!
 

WDWDarling

Well-Known Member
Woah, that was way too early to for that roller coaster ride of emotions. So glad everything got straightened out and you can breathe easy. Your plans sound great :).
 

Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I did almost the exact same thing you did...wait for the discounts to drop for September. Except we ended up at All Star Music. Mainly so my daughter can swim at the 3 Caballeros pool!

I actually really love the theming there but for some reason it was more exspensive than pop for our dates!
 

Ciara

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Just reading all that you went through has me biting my nails! I swear disney planning is so stressful but so worth it in the end! Glad you were able to get the free dining! And back at Pop! I think it was meant to be!! :) Can't wait for your trip!!!

I was definitely bitting mine! Haha. It's meant to be for sure :inlove: I'm so excited, if only time would go a wee bit faster :D
 

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