Hello ladies and gents! Darolyn here! I’ve met some of you in previous trip reports as I used to post A LOT back in 2010-2015. I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting some of y’all in real life! WOOT!! I stopped writing TR’s right before I moved from Maine to Texas as we started going too frequently and I just didn’t have the time or energy while working 2 jobs to write them. I know... going too frequently to Disney.. as if there IS such a thing!! LOL But we’ve cut our trips back to about 2 times a year now and reading everyone’s TR’s over the last few months made me want to write one again. So, here we are!!
OK, here are the plans!! We will be celebrating a birthday this trip!! It’s Mom’s birthday!! YAY!!!
WHEN: April 27 – May 5
WHERE: Originally we were booked at Pop but a good discount came out for Coronado Springs. The rack rate was FAR too high to pay but the discount saved us about $700 off rack rate so we upgraded. Normally we would try and rent DVC points but we can’t budget that much for this trip. I AM however hoping another awesome discounted DVC point rental becomes available before we go.. We were able to upgrade from Pop to Animal Kingdom Lodge – studio, savannah view for $70 more per night last September on a discounted confirmed reservation so maybe we will get lucky again!! If not, we’re excited to try out Coronado Springs again. We did stay here in 2018 for marathon weekend for 4 nights but that year the temps happened to be in the 30s every day while we were there so we didn’t get to explore the resort as much as we wanted. We basically went from the room, to the food court to the bus stop. Also, this was SUPPOSED to be a surprise for Mom BUT she noticed we had switched to Coronado Springs on the MDE app. Normally she doesn’t ever look at the app but she wanted to see what we had picked for dining and saw it. RATS!! But, she was still surprised and is excited to stay there.
WHO: Me (Darolyn) Ashley (sister) and Terryn (mother) I’m the planner of the group. Mom and Ashley just say to me “tell us when we’re going and how much money we’ll need” I beg them to choose some dining but they always say “whatever you wanna do is fine with us” So I choose what I know we will all like. We like to try and hit one new place we haven’t been whenever we go, and this trip will be no exception. My aunt may also join us for a couple days. She lives in Clearwater and last trip she surprised us (well, me and my sister.. Mom knew) and met us at Animal Kingdom on our last day. It was so great!
Tuesday 4/27 – I’ll be flying In from Houston, TX and Mom and Ashley will be flying in from Portland, ME. 95% of the time we fly Southwest and try and coordinate our flight times so we arrive around the same time. Usually, it only works on arrival OR departure. Not usually both. Flight times from Portland are hit or miss sometimes since so few SW flights go there with just one stop. It used to make sense to go down to Boston or even Manchester NH because they had non-stops and SW flights were cheaper than Portland but over the last few years, Portland’s SW flight prices have been the same or lower than the other 2 airports. This time though I land at 11:30am and the other 2 land at 11:40am…. Until they changed the flights on us!! Now I land at 10:35am and they land at 11:15am. Since It’s only half an hour, I’ll just wait for them, no big deal. I really hate that we have to go get our bags and then schlep them allllll the way over to DME but… it is what it is. After checking into Pop, we’ll head over to Magic Kingdom. It’s been awhile since we’ve started our trip with this park but the last 2 trips we haven’t spent much time here so we decided MK was due for some love! Have a 5:50pm dinner ADR at Skipper Canteen, which we have never been to before. I’m a vegetarian and they have a couple good looking veggie options and we were lucky with the park closing ADR time!
Wednesday 4/28 – Hollywood Studios (or as we still call it MGM!) – Going to try for ROTR boarding groups today!! My sister had luck last time and got us BG 4 on our first time! We got another BG the second day, I think it was like 18 or something. Have a 50s Prime Time Café ADR for 6:40pm, another close to park closing score for us!
Thursday 4/29 – Animal Kingdom – Nothing really planned for this day other than Homecoming for dinner. Tried for Beaches n Cream and even using my 60 days plus 10 I wasn’t able to get B&C til later in the trip. Oh well, we love Homecomin so we’re not mad about eating there at all.
Friday 4/30 – Epcot and Mom’s birthday!! –Mom has celebrated previous birthdays at Busch Gardens, Disneyland, California Adventure and Magic Kingdom. Since she loves all things gardening and flowers, this year she chose Epcot. We’re going to look at all the topiaries and we were HOPING that MAYBE Remy would be open…. But now we know it will NOT be open! Booooo ☹ We’re also going to snack around at all the F&G booths. We haven’t been during F&G since 2017 and we really didn’t spend much time at Epcot so we didn’t do much snacking. California Grill is the plan for dinner to celebrate the birthday girl. ADR is for 7:05pm. This is the night my aunt may come up and join us for the weekend. Since we always do a cake whenever we’re at Disney for birthdays, this year will be no exception. We started playing around with some Donald Duck ideas since he’s her favorite, but then she threw us a curveball when my sister asked her who she would want on a cake at Disney. She said Figment!! So back to the drawing board! I found a cute, mini purple Figment cake while searching google with his tail, horns and wings so I might have them make that into an 8-10” cake and maybe add his eyes? I have no idea honestly… I’ll just let them do whatever they think will be good. We’ve ordered cakes twice while dining at Cali Grill and both times they were EXCELLENT so we put our trust in the Disney bakers!
Saturday 5/1 – Magic Kingdom – Aunt might be with us for the day so we decided MK would be the way to go. Sanaa for dinner tonight at 6:45pm. Perfect timing since it’ll give us time to get to AKL after park close and we’ll be there before sunset on the savannah. Sanaa is a must do for us every time! Last time we did it twice! (One was bread service to go but it still counts!)
Sunday 5/2 – Back to Epcot! Aunt might go with us for a few hours before heading back to Clearwater. I’m hoping she will get to come stay with us. When I lived in Maine and her and my cousins lived in Rhode Island, we saw each other all the time. Now, not so much, so it’s always nice to see her! We had just planned to snack around Flower and Garden today but this was the only day we didn’t have an ADR and I was able to get Beaches N Cream. So depending on how much snacking we get done, we may just go for ice cream! Love that No Way Jose!!
Monday 5/3 – DHS – Going to try for another ROTR boarding group. Dining plan will be Sci Fi at 6:50pm. We also grabbed an Oga’s ressie for 12:55pm. Some people say it’s not worth it but we love the drinks and always have a good time here.
Tuesday 5/4 – MK again! Breakfast at Kona Café this day! Haven’t had breakfast there in awhile and I miss their pineapple macadamia pancakes and POG juice mimosas!! Since we don’t have a dinner plan today, we may head up to Dahlia Lounge at Grand Destino and have some drinks and soak In the view on our last night.
Wednesday 5/5 – AK and departure day – I always feel like AK gets the shaft as it’s always the park we do on the day we’re leaving so we never really get 2 full days there. But it opens the earliest so it makes the most sense when our flight is in the evening. Why go to Epcot that opens at 11 when you can get a few more hours at AK because it opens earlier? That’s my logic anyway!! Flights are at 6:30 and 6:45. Again, great luck with coordinating our flights... Until they changed them on us!!! ARGH!! Mom and Ashley leave at 5:20pm and my flight Is at 6. I figure we’ll be able to stay at AK til around1:30. I can’t tell you the amount of times DME has picked us up separately (like 45 mins to an hour apart due to flight times) only for us to be reunited in the terminal for a little bit before our flights lol
Anywho, I was able to get all the dining I wanted even though we had to move Beaches a bit. I was a little worried reading reports that lots of people weren’t able to get what they wanted but luck was on our side this time. I’m going to try and be REALLY good bout taking notes this trip. I’m a little out of practice from doing trip reports though so hopefully I can remember. We’re going to try and be at the parks an hour before opening so we can hopefully get in early and knock a few attractions off our list before the park “technically” opens. We’re also keeping an eye out to see if they extend the park hours. We will adjust our dining accordingly if we can! I also plan to rent a couple lenses for the trip for my Nikon. I hadn’t been carrying my camera around to the parks much the last few years but in September I rented a lens and forgot how much fun I had taking pics.
OK, here are the plans!! We will be celebrating a birthday this trip!! It’s Mom’s birthday!! YAY!!!
WHEN: April 27 – May 5
WHERE: Originally we were booked at Pop but a good discount came out for Coronado Springs. The rack rate was FAR too high to pay but the discount saved us about $700 off rack rate so we upgraded. Normally we would try and rent DVC points but we can’t budget that much for this trip. I AM however hoping another awesome discounted DVC point rental becomes available before we go.. We were able to upgrade from Pop to Animal Kingdom Lodge – studio, savannah view for $70 more per night last September on a discounted confirmed reservation so maybe we will get lucky again!! If not, we’re excited to try out Coronado Springs again. We did stay here in 2018 for marathon weekend for 4 nights but that year the temps happened to be in the 30s every day while we were there so we didn’t get to explore the resort as much as we wanted. We basically went from the room, to the food court to the bus stop. Also, this was SUPPOSED to be a surprise for Mom BUT she noticed we had switched to Coronado Springs on the MDE app. Normally she doesn’t ever look at the app but she wanted to see what we had picked for dining and saw it. RATS!! But, she was still surprised and is excited to stay there.
WHO: Me (Darolyn) Ashley (sister) and Terryn (mother) I’m the planner of the group. Mom and Ashley just say to me “tell us when we’re going and how much money we’ll need” I beg them to choose some dining but they always say “whatever you wanna do is fine with us” So I choose what I know we will all like. We like to try and hit one new place we haven’t been whenever we go, and this trip will be no exception. My aunt may also join us for a couple days. She lives in Clearwater and last trip she surprised us (well, me and my sister.. Mom knew) and met us at Animal Kingdom on our last day. It was so great!
Tuesday 4/27 – I’ll be flying In from Houston, TX and Mom and Ashley will be flying in from Portland, ME. 95% of the time we fly Southwest and try and coordinate our flight times so we arrive around the same time. Usually, it only works on arrival OR departure. Not usually both. Flight times from Portland are hit or miss sometimes since so few SW flights go there with just one stop. It used to make sense to go down to Boston or even Manchester NH because they had non-stops and SW flights were cheaper than Portland but over the last few years, Portland’s SW flight prices have been the same or lower than the other 2 airports. This time though I land at 11:30am and the other 2 land at 11:40am…. Until they changed the flights on us!! Now I land at 10:35am and they land at 11:15am. Since It’s only half an hour, I’ll just wait for them, no big deal. I really hate that we have to go get our bags and then schlep them allllll the way over to DME but… it is what it is. After checking into Pop, we’ll head over to Magic Kingdom. It’s been awhile since we’ve started our trip with this park but the last 2 trips we haven’t spent much time here so we decided MK was due for some love! Have a 5:50pm dinner ADR at Skipper Canteen, which we have never been to before. I’m a vegetarian and they have a couple good looking veggie options and we were lucky with the park closing ADR time!
Wednesday 4/28 – Hollywood Studios (or as we still call it MGM!) – Going to try for ROTR boarding groups today!! My sister had luck last time and got us BG 4 on our first time! We got another BG the second day, I think it was like 18 or something. Have a 50s Prime Time Café ADR for 6:40pm, another close to park closing score for us!
Thursday 4/29 – Animal Kingdom – Nothing really planned for this day other than Homecoming for dinner. Tried for Beaches n Cream and even using my 60 days plus 10 I wasn’t able to get B&C til later in the trip. Oh well, we love Homecomin so we’re not mad about eating there at all.
Friday 4/30 – Epcot and Mom’s birthday!! –Mom has celebrated previous birthdays at Busch Gardens, Disneyland, California Adventure and Magic Kingdom. Since she loves all things gardening and flowers, this year she chose Epcot. We’re going to look at all the topiaries and we were HOPING that MAYBE Remy would be open…. But now we know it will NOT be open! Booooo ☹ We’re also going to snack around at all the F&G booths. We haven’t been during F&G since 2017 and we really didn’t spend much time at Epcot so we didn’t do much snacking. California Grill is the plan for dinner to celebrate the birthday girl. ADR is for 7:05pm. This is the night my aunt may come up and join us for the weekend. Since we always do a cake whenever we’re at Disney for birthdays, this year will be no exception. We started playing around with some Donald Duck ideas since he’s her favorite, but then she threw us a curveball when my sister asked her who she would want on a cake at Disney. She said Figment!! So back to the drawing board! I found a cute, mini purple Figment cake while searching google with his tail, horns and wings so I might have them make that into an 8-10” cake and maybe add his eyes? I have no idea honestly… I’ll just let them do whatever they think will be good. We’ve ordered cakes twice while dining at Cali Grill and both times they were EXCELLENT so we put our trust in the Disney bakers!
Saturday 5/1 – Magic Kingdom – Aunt might be with us for the day so we decided MK would be the way to go. Sanaa for dinner tonight at 6:45pm. Perfect timing since it’ll give us time to get to AKL after park close and we’ll be there before sunset on the savannah. Sanaa is a must do for us every time! Last time we did it twice! (One was bread service to go but it still counts!)
Sunday 5/2 – Back to Epcot! Aunt might go with us for a few hours before heading back to Clearwater. I’m hoping she will get to come stay with us. When I lived in Maine and her and my cousins lived in Rhode Island, we saw each other all the time. Now, not so much, so it’s always nice to see her! We had just planned to snack around Flower and Garden today but this was the only day we didn’t have an ADR and I was able to get Beaches N Cream. So depending on how much snacking we get done, we may just go for ice cream! Love that No Way Jose!!
Monday 5/3 – DHS – Going to try for another ROTR boarding group. Dining plan will be Sci Fi at 6:50pm. We also grabbed an Oga’s ressie for 12:55pm. Some people say it’s not worth it but we love the drinks and always have a good time here.
Tuesday 5/4 – MK again! Breakfast at Kona Café this day! Haven’t had breakfast there in awhile and I miss their pineapple macadamia pancakes and POG juice mimosas!! Since we don’t have a dinner plan today, we may head up to Dahlia Lounge at Grand Destino and have some drinks and soak In the view on our last night.
Wednesday 5/5 – AK and departure day – I always feel like AK gets the shaft as it’s always the park we do on the day we’re leaving so we never really get 2 full days there. But it opens the earliest so it makes the most sense when our flight is in the evening. Why go to Epcot that opens at 11 when you can get a few more hours at AK because it opens earlier? That’s my logic anyway!! Flights are at 6:30 and 6:45. Again, great luck with coordinating our flights... Until they changed them on us!!! ARGH!! Mom and Ashley leave at 5:20pm and my flight Is at 6. I figure we’ll be able to stay at AK til around1:30. I can’t tell you the amount of times DME has picked us up separately (like 45 mins to an hour apart due to flight times) only for us to be reunited in the terminal for a little bit before our flights lol
Anywho, I was able to get all the dining I wanted even though we had to move Beaches a bit. I was a little worried reading reports that lots of people weren’t able to get what they wanted but luck was on our side this time. I’m going to try and be REALLY good bout taking notes this trip. I’m a little out of practice from doing trip reports though so hopefully I can remember. We’re going to try and be at the parks an hour before opening so we can hopefully get in early and knock a few attractions off our list before the park “technically” opens. We’re also keeping an eye out to see if they extend the park hours. We will adjust our dining accordingly if we can! I also plan to rent a couple lenses for the trip for my Nikon. I hadn’t been carrying my camera around to the parks much the last few years but in September I rented a lens and forgot how much fun I had taking pics.
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