Pre-Trip Everybody's got a Laughing Place (and I can't wait to get to mine!)

I have been enjoying reading trip reports so much while counting down my return to Disney World that I decided to give writing my own pre-trip report a try. We have just over three weeks left to go so the excitement is building!

When: August 20-30
Where: Starting out at Universal Studios Sapphire Falls Resort (huge Harry Potter fans in this family), moving over to Disney World on Wednesday the 23rd and staying at the Contemporary, moving again to Beach Club on Saturday the 26th.
This will be my 8th Disney World trip but first time staying at Disney World resorts other than two nights at Port Orleans River Side on one vacation. Really excited to do this!

Who: me (Jo), husband (James), daughter(Maddie, 13), son(Xander,10). Here we are on our last WDW vacation in October 2015.

 

[Courtney6682]

All caught up!

I can't wait to see how Xander does! Is maddie good with him? Is she exited?

 

[Go.Nijntje]

That happy face is so precious!

 

[kaitertot5249]

I have the same look on my face when I look at Disney plans, gotta love a good trip planning binder!

 

[Figaro Family]

All caught up!

I can't wait to see how Xander does! Is maddie good with him? Is she exited?

Maddie is excited about the trip. Especially about the roller coasters at universal and seeing Harry Potter world again. I let her make the choices on some of the ADR's and the most of the fast passes and that definitely got her into the Disney spirit! She's anxious for Star Wars land to open, she's a huge fan, I promised her we'd go sometime in the first year it opens. She's getting better with Xander as she's gotten older. They are only 2 1/2 years apart in age but it seems like several more years than that because he is still like a preschooler in many ways. That has made it hard for her to connect with him. But now she's starting to enjoy how he looks up to her. He watches her play video games and wants to play the same ones and likes the same characters she does. He's also more aware of her a his sister and gets worried about where she is when she's not home. I'm planning on sending the two of them alone together on some smaller rides this time like the teacups. We've never done this before but I'm hoping it will help them to have brother and sister bonding time!

 

[Figaro Family]

This is may be a good spot to layout our general vacation plan since I spent so much time working on it! I am trying to remind myself that things like weather might make us alter plans a bit on the go but this is my best case scenario plan.

Sunday the 20th: travel day, get into MCO at 3pm and drive to Sapphire Falls Resort at Universal.

Monday and Tuesday: Spend the day at the Universal parks, one of these days we will be driving to St. Augustine to meet up with cousins for dinner, we haven't settled on which day yet.

Wednesday the 23rd: check out of the hotel and have one more day at the Universal parks. We have to get to the Contemporary in time for an ADR at Chef Mickey's so that gives us a firm timetable for when to leave Universal. I'm hoping to see the Electrical Water Pageant later that night. I'd never heard about this before I started researching hotels so I'm kind of excited to see it.

Thursday: First Disney parks day! We want to take advantage of all the extra magic hours so we're going to do something different and start out at Epcot. This is a little hard for me because I've always insisted on starting with the "castle park" on Disney trips, but since I'm a grownup I'll try to get past it. We'll take a break in the afternoon then switch over to Magic Kingdom for the rest of the day.

Friday: Start out at MK. We just found out yesterday that this is the day the AP holders in the Florida family decided they would join us. We're pretty excited about it. This will include an aunt and uncle, a cousin, his wife and an adorable two-year-old. One part I'm panicking about though, I got an ADR for a Be Our Guest breakfast that morning way back in February. This was one of Maddie's picks. I'm desperately trying to add the rest of the family in so that we don't have to cancel it but there is no availability. Can anyone out there tell me about the way to get notified of last minute openings on an app? I think I read something about this in a trip report but can't remember whose!
Later in the day we will take a break and switch back over to Epcot. This is the first MNSSHP at MK so they'll be closing early.

Saturday: Check out of the Contemporary and monorail over to the Poly. We're doing the character breakfast there. This is another Maddie pick. I'm pretty pleased about it since I was worried she would be too cool for characters on this trip. When she found out that Stitch would be there (her favorite) she was like "I think that will be fun" with an actual smile on her teenager face!
After breakfast we will drive to the aunt and uncle's house in Winter Park to spend the day and visit with more cousins.
That evening we will check into the Beach Club.

Sunday the 27th: Hollywood Studios in the morning, get rid of rental car in the afternoon and have pool time if it doesn't rain.

Monday: Animal Kingdom

Tuesday: Disney Springs earlier in the day, then MNSSHP! It's ridiculous to celebrate Halloween in August but I couldn't resist getting tickets when I found out this was happening during our trip.

Wednesday the 30th: Fly home.

 

[Figaro Family]

I just solved our Be Our Guest ADR problem for Friday the 25th! Our original ADR was for 10:45, we'd planned for a late breakfast after hitting a bunch of rides during extra magic hour and regular park opening. James' extended family are planning to arrive close to regular park opening so it would be pretty rude to duck out for an ADR without them if I couldn't add everyone to the reservation! An 8:15 ADR just popped up for two people that morning. James said he was ok with missing out and would take Xander on rides during the extra magic hour. I gave Maddie the choice of just the two of us eating or skipping the restaurant altogether and just going on rides since the restaurant was her pick originally. She decided she wanted to go to Be Our Guest with just me! We let the extended family know, and now we'll just wing it with them on finding someplace to eat lunch together that day. Mini crisis averted

 

[Figaro Family]

The countdown is really on! We'll officially be in Florida one week from right now, checked into our first resort and maybe even eating dinner at Universal. We're organizing clothes for packing and doing pre-trip laundry (always more fun than post trip laundry). I went over all our Disney ADR's today and I think everything is set for good.

Chef Mickey's on Wednesday the 23rd at 5:20. This is a little earlier than I'd wanted but was the only dinnertime available even 160 days out. It does give a push to switch from Universal to Disney earlier and maybe that will give us a chance to rest up.

Thursday the 24th: Rose and Grown Pub at Epcot 12:30pm for lunch. We've never eaten at any World Showcase restaurants so this is in the something new category.
I had an ADR for the Crystal Palace this night for dinner but decided to cancel it. We like to have at least one evening at MK where we eat somewhere casual like Casy's Corner and I realized this was the only way to fit that in. Also we've only done the breakfast meal at Crystal Palace and the dinner menu wasn't looking appealing enough to me to pay the adult price for everyone now that Xander doesn't count as a kid.

Friday morning as I said before is all fixed up with just Maddie and I at Be Our Guest. Later that night we have an ADR at Nine Dragons in Epcot. Another first time restaurant for us and in the World Showcase too! This one was picked by Maddie, she had a Mandarin Chinese language class as an elective in school taught by a woman from China, so she thought it would be fun to eat in "China".

Saturday morning is the ADR at Ohana's

Sunday the 27th I just added a breakfast at Hollywood & Vine for the Disney Jr. character meal. This is all for Xander. It's a little bit to make up for not meeting Winnie the Pooh at Crystal Palace on this trip which he absolutely loves. I haven't mentioned how much he loves characters. To him they are giant living stuffed animals for him to hug. We have to be careful not to let him love them too hard though, he's fascinated by their eyes and mouths so he tries to check those out pretty closely. My dad actually took Xander and my niece to this character breakfast on our big trip, I went along to help with Xander wrangling. I was so impressed with how extra nicely everyone treated Xander at this restaurant (not that he wasn't treated well everywhere else, I just felt that this was special). I don't think its as popular because it wasn't very crowded so that might have been a factor, but the waitress checked in with us several different times to make sure Xander was having a good time and to see if he needed anything. I think she even talked to the characters because they spent extra time with him and a couple came around twice to see him. Xander was ecstatic. It was so great too because my dad was thrilled that Xander enjoyed the special time they spent together that morning.

awww... Xander's so cute.
What was I writing about again?
Oh yes, the last of our ADR's
One more new one for is is going to be that Sunday evening at Beaches and Cream, I'm really looking forward to that one.

Monday the 28th we have a Breakfast ADR at the Rainforest Cafe. We have a tradition of eating at the Rainforest on every Disney trip. It was the first restaurant we took Maddie to on her first trip to Disneyland and she's been a huge fan ever since. This time is different though because we've never eaten breakfast there!

Tuesday the 29th we're going to hang out at Disney Springs and have an early lunch at T-Rex the sister to Rainforest Cafe. Xander loved this on our last trip so this one is for him. Later that day we have an early Dinner ADR at the Plaza Inn. This will be our last Magic Kingdom meal and is a sentimental favorite. We took Maddie there in the spring of 2011 when we were in Florida for one of the cousin's weddings. She'd just turned seven and was picked to be junior mayor. She used her bonus fast pass to ride Splash Mountain for the first time.

All our pictures from this are from the photo pass photographer that was documenting the whole thing as we were too surprised to get out our camera. The only place they exist now are on this album page because I was too cheap at the time to buy all the pictures individually. I miss when she was that little.

That's the roundup of our ADR's, now back to organizing the packing!

 

[Go.Nijntje]

Both Xander and Maddie are super cute! You already have lots of good memories and I am certain you will make more on your upcoming trip. Thanks for sharing.

 

[PrincessP]

Hi! I just stumbled upon your Pre-trip report last night and have enjoyed reading. Your family is precious. It is poignant to read about all the special Disney times with your family members....those who have passed away and those still with you. You are so dear to share those details.

I see you figured out the BOG ADR issue. However, touring plans does have a program for looking up ADR availability. I used it to acquire ohana breakfast ADRs this summer for a last minute trip. I am a subscriber, and I assume you have to be one to use it.

https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/reservation-finder

My sister has Down syndrome. Although, I know it is nothing like autism, I do understand a little about making things work for those with special needs. Thanks for sharing about Xander and his excitement.

And I have a 14 y.o. Son and 11 y.o. Daughter so I get the teen thing, too. We will survive! I miss when they were little and wanted to see all the characters and my daughter all the princesses! Time flies much too quickly.

Have a magical trip! Your plans sound perfect!!

 

[Figaro Family]

Both Xander and Maddie are super cute! You already have lots of good memories and I am certain you will make more on your upcoming trip. Thanks for sharing.

We've gone on so many Disney trips now that we've come up with something about each one that makes it memorable when we talk about it. So Maddie will say something like "was that the trip where I was the mayor, or the one when it was really cold?" Sometimes I wonder if we go too much, but then I wouldn't have all those great memories!

 

[amjt660]

We've gone on so many Disney trips now that we've come up with something about each one that makes it memorable when we talk about it. So Maddie will say something like "was that the trip where I was the mayor, or the one when it was really cold?" Sometimes I wonder if we go too much, but then I wouldn't have all those great memories!

I can honestly say that I would not have a mortgage today on my home if I was not a Disney fanatic.
But life is too short to sit at home, pay off your debts and not do anything fun

You cannot put a price on Disney trip memories


Carpe Diem !!

Max

 

[Figaro Family]

Hi! I just stumbled upon your Pre-trip report last night and have enjoyed reading. Your family is precious. It is poignant to read about all the special Disney times with your family members....those who have passed away and those still with you. You are so dear to share those details.

I see you figured out the BOG ADR issue. However, touring plans does have a program for looking up ADR availability. I used it to acquire ohana breakfast ADRs this summer for a last minute trip. I am a subscriber, and I assume you have to be one to use it.

https://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/reservation-finder

My sister has Down syndrome. Although, I know it is nothing like autism, I do understand a little about making things work for those with special needs. Thanks for sharing about Xander and his excitement.

And I have a 14 y.o. Son and 11 y.o. Daughter so I get the teen thing, too. We will survive! I miss when they were little and wanted to see all the characters and my daughter all the princesses! Time flies much too quickly.

Have a magical trip! Your plans sound perfect!!

Thank you for the Touring Plans link, I will definitely use it next time! In all of the places we've gone for Xander's therapies and school programs we've come across so many kids with so many different learning differences, cognative disabilities and health issues including Down syndrome. There is such a range of difficulties that comes with each one that its hard to say which is harder than another. I do know we're lucky that Xander doesn't have medical issues and that he is a sensory seeker when it comes to hugs and cuddles. Also, maybe I'll get lucky and he'll skip the surly teen behavior! Good luck with your teen and almost teen too.

 

[Figaro Family]

I can honestly say that I would not have a mortgage today on my home if I was not a Disney fanatic.
But life is too short to sit at home, pay off your debts and not do anything fun

You cannot put a price on Disney trip memories


Carpe Diem !!

Max

Absolutely

 

[Figaro Family]

This trip came very close to being a birthday trip for James. I was hoping to schedule it so that his birthday would be during the vacation but when I was checking the school calendar I realized it wouldn't quite work. Our school district doesn't start school until the day after Labor day but both of the kids' schools tend to have a back to school night the Thursday before. James' birthday is August 31st which is a Thursday this year and true to my prediction we have to run around to both schools that night to pick up schedules and meet teachers. That is why we're getting back the day before on the 30th. I'm planning on celebrating the birthday at Disney World anyway, especially since it's a pretty big one. James is turning 40. He could really care less, but I'm going to celebrate anyway.
James is a guy who doesn't like any special attention or parties and is always forgetting how old he is. Once he even lost a year, I found out on his 38th birthday that he had thought he was already 38 for the whole previous year! I've been teasing him that he's going to be "old" pretty soon and he reminded me that my 40th is coming up next June so I better watch it with the old talk, point taken.
I've called Disney Dining (without him knowing) and ordered a birthday cake to be served with our Nine Dragons dinner on Friday the 25th. I also asked if it could be noted on all our reservations that it is his 40th birthday, so hopefully he'll get more unwanted attention! The person I talked to suggested that he wear a birthday button. I told her there was no way I'd be able to talk him into that and she suggested I wear one instead that pointed to him! I don't think he'd go for that either but it was a pretty funny suggestion.
I really can't believe we're heading toward our 40th birthdays! This Christmas will be the 23rd anniversary of when we first met, so we're well past the point of having known each other half our lives which is so amazing to me. It's funny when we still come up with stories to tell each other about the "before times" before we met when we were 17 and 16.
Our origin story is vacation based, but not Disney. We were both Drama nerds in High School and belonged to the drama clubs in our different schools. We both signed up for a December Italy tour that our two clubs were joined together on. So we met in Italy during Christmas! We have a goal of getting back to Italy for a combo 25th anniversary of being together and 20th wedding anniversary.

This is pretty much the only picture of us together in Italy. We're very seriously listening to a tour guide. Check out James' mop of curly hair! He is actually half Italian and this is what I expected Xander's hair to look like. Instead we got a straight haired blondie.

 

[Figaro Family]

Three days to go! Serious packing is underway and we've all had our vacation/early back to school haircuts. I've made all the arrangements for our dog and two cats to be boarded, we'll be taking them there late Saturday afternoon. This is actually about to happen!

The last night of the trip is going to be the MNSSHP. As I said earlier, this was not in our original plans. When the dates were announced, I couldn't believe they were going to start the Halloween parties in August! Originally we were going to take a parks break for the entire weekend and just have four park days: Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. But when it came up that a MNSSHP was happening on the last night of our vacation, I felt we had to go for it so I shifted the plans around a bit and got the tickets. The perk is that it's one of the least expensive nights and the prediction is that it will be one of the least crowded. We went to a MNSSHP on the big October trip with my dad and sister's family so we'll be able to compare crowd size to that night which felt pretty packed. The family went all out on costumes for that party. We all decided to pick a Disney character to dress up as, all of us except James who insisted that he wanted to be Kurt Russell's character from "Big Trouble in Little China" which is his favorite movie. Since Kurt Russell is a Disney legend I guess Jack Burton can be an honorary Disney character? James was very committed to his costume, which was hilarious to me because he normally hates attention and has never worn a tank top in his life. So we got the Jack Burton tank top, a pair of 80's style jeans from ebay, and a sweet mullet wig and James was all set.
Xander doesn't do costumes or trick-or-treating so I got him a Buzz Lightyear costume T and he was happy. This was the last time I was able to get Maddie to dress up as a princess, there is no way she would do that now. She chose to be Elsa as long as her costume looked "realistic" and I found a great one on ebay. My dad got both the granddaughters princess makeovers at Bibbidi Bobbity Boutique that day, so she had awesome Elsa hair. I decided to make my red hair work for me and dressed up as Anna!

We're not going to get so elaborate this time since it is still August and will probably be pretty hot out (hopefully not too rainy). We all chose Star Wars characters and are going to wear costume T's and sundresses. James will be Chewbacca, I'll be Darth Vader, Xander will be Luke Skywalker,and Maddie chose R2D2 because he's "so cute". I was certain she'd want to be Rey or Jyn Erso, but no, cute R2D2 it is!

 

[Figaro Family]

We'll be boarding the airplane in about 12 hours! This means that we have to leave home by 4am to get to the airport . Hopefully we'll all be able to get some sleep tonight. Xander's so excited I'm worried he won't fall asleep until after midnight. We're just about finished packing and just dropped the pets off at the boarding place.

Here they are just before they left home. Our sweet 10 year old lab named Hattie. Older cat named Cricket. And there's Figaro again! Hattie and Figaro were pretty chill about the whole thing but Cricket was acting traumatized so I'm feeling guilty right now . Normally we leave the cats at home and have someone check on them but this is a bit too long of a vacation for that. Hopefully she'll forgive me when we get back!
It's been really fun and a bit therapeutic to write this pre trip report. Thank you to everyone out there for reading it! I might put some pictures here during the trip and I'm definitely going to do a full report when we get back.

 

[blreinsel]

Leaving the fur babies is the HARDEST part of going on vacation!

Have a magical time!

 

[Go.Nijntje]

Have a great time making more memories with your lovely family!

 

[fractal]

Hope you are having a great time! Take plenty of pic!

 

[Figaro Family]

We are in Orlando! Just got our bags and are checking in for the rental car. Flight was drama free so we're off to a great start!