Pre-Trip I can't believe this is happenning!!!

Hello and welcome to my long time coming, first Pre-trip report, yay!!!! I've been putting this off for months because I knew in between our FP+ day and our actual trip would feel like forever, so now i'm at the 45 day mark until we fly out, so here goes


The cast: ME!

I’m Steph, I’ll be 27 when we arrive & I love all things Disney.
Anthony (25)

is my Boyfriend who is pretty much the best human I know for letting me live out my dream of spending 10 whole nights at WDW!!
We live in Australia so going back to the USA for a second time is an exciting huge deal for us & we cannot wait to come back!!!


The story: I visited DLP in 2010 when my Bestie & I traveled through Europe & I loved it!! We are both crazy about Disney & even gave up a full day in Paris with our tour group to visit Disney Land instead!!! Here's some pics of our rainy day @ DLP.




So when Anthony & I were planning our trip to the USA back in 2013 I knew I had to visit either Disney Land or Walt Disney World. At the time I knew nothing about WDW or DL, not even which was on which side of the country so I started researching like crazy & decided that WDW was the place I wanted to go. We had 4 nights to set aside so we had 3 crazy busy days at WDW in August 2013. We stayed at POR and managed to visit all 4 parks, DTD & a water park in only 3 days. Needless to say it was exhausting; I mean we had 3, long 16 hour days of walking nonstop in the August heat!! But I was exhilarated & knew one day I wanted to return! At the end of our 3 days we were leaving for a week in NYC.. New York City!!!! A place so many people dream of visiting, including me…. & I was sad because I was leaving WDW haha!


My favorite pic from that whole trip!!! This was the best day of my life! any who, moving on......

Our 2015 trip all began with an invitation to a friend’s Hawaiian wedding on October 1. My plans forming were to fly from Sydney to Orlando for a week then over to Hawaii for another week with our friends. Unfortunately our friends broke off their engagement in November last year so all plans went on hold for a while & I basically gave up on my dream of visiting WDW for another few years at least.

In January we started talking about doing a quick trip to either Bali or Thailand in June this year but I had this voice at the back of my brain that was chanting Disney World, Disney World. It took Anthony a couple of weeks of convincing. I told him we needed more time to really enjoy everything about the World. That we’d missed so much because of our time limit, the heat and because we were already exhausted from our 2 previous weeks of travel. I must have pestered enough because he relented and agreed and we now only have 53 days to go until were back!!!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!!!!!

The plans: We will be in the USA for 3 weeks, I couldn’t convince Anthony to spend the whole time at WDW, although I tried! soo we’re spending a couple of days exploring Dallas, flying to Orlando spending about 5 days seeing the sights then 2 nights at Universal and topping the holiday off with a whole 10 nights at WDW, ....our timeline looks a little like this.


October 9: Fly to Dallas, explore for 2 days. I'd like to see the Sixth Floor Museum & the Texas State fair is on too so that will be fun to check out!
October 11: Fly from Dallas to Charlotte and onto Orlando!!!, pick up hire care around 4pm. Now here in Australia we drive on the left hand side of the road so this is going to be interesting! Something I am looking forward too though!

October 11-16 Stay at the Hilton on I-Drive. Explore Orlando, shop, do a day trip to Clearwater beach & maybe another to Daytona beach, were leaving this few days a little bit open becuase we can and it'll be nice to relax before WDW.

October 16-18: Stay at the Hard rock hotel universal - We have 2 day passes to Universal, I love Harry Potter & Anthony loves Simpsons so we’ll enjoy this for sure. We couldn’t make it over during our 2013 trip

October 18: Drop the hire car back to MCO and… CATCH THE DME TO Port Orleans Riverside…. Yyaaayyyy!!!!!!

October 18-23: Stay at POR..... We stayed here last trip in Alligator Bayou and loved it, this time were staying in a Royal room I'm so excited!!

October 23-28 We are moving to Disney’s Caribbean Resort for our last 5 nights - Now I’m not 100% sold on the place, I cant really find to many great reviews but..... it was the only input Anthony had in the planning and he is very keen so I left it, I would have much rather the Wilderness Lodge, it is my dream resort but with the dollar being what it is we just couldn’t afford it this time Just a good excuse to come back possibly for a Disney-moon one day .
October 28 We fly home Not until 6pm though so we will get to spend the morning in the Magic Kingdom!

We have 8 days worth of water park fun & more tickets, tickets to MNSSHP on the 25th October and we'll get to enjoy Food & wine!!!! Our ADR's are booked so are our FP's & my excitement levels are through the roof!!!! Let me tell you its hard to maintain this level of excitement for so many months but i literally think about our trip every day!!!!
I will fill you guys in on our day to day plans at WDW next time incl ADR choices, thanks for reading!!!!

 

[officialtom]

So exciting! You are going to have such a wonderful trip. 10 days is absolutely perfect! We have 10 days booked late this coming January/February and I absolutely cannot wait. POR is usually our home and we absolutely love it too! I would love to experience a Royal Room someday! But we'll be at CBR for the next trip simply because the rooms are substantially cheaper than POR this time for some reason. I hear relatively good things so I'm optimistic.

We're running into a similar dollar issue right now, since the Canadian dollar dropped along with the price of oil, but that certainly won't stop us from heading "home" for some more magical memories. 157 days!

Enjoy the planning! You're so close!!

 

[fractal]

Wow! sounds like a great trip!

 

[RyPat]

Here is a pretty favorable review of Caribbean Beach...
http://www.disneytouristblog.com/disneys-caribbean-beach-resort-review/

 

[StephK]

So exciting! You are going to have such a wonderful trip. 10 days is absolutely perfect! We have 10 days booked late this coming January/February and I absolutely cannot wait. POR is usually our home and we absolutely love it too! I would love to experience a Royal Room someday! But we'll be at CBR for the next trip simply because the rooms are substantially cheaper than POR this time for some reason. I hear relatively good things so I'm optimistic.

We're running into a similar dollar issue right now, since the Canadian dollar dropped along with the price of oil, but that certainly won't stop us from heading "home" for some more magical memories. 157 days!

Enjoy the planning! You're so close!!

I have decided to be optimistic too! The only thing I'm slightly worried about is the amount of time the buses might take but we will be at Disney all bad emotions will be non existent.

The dollar's a killer isn't it, we booked before it dropped or we may have changed our minds!!

Your trip will be here before you know it

Here is a pretty favorable review of Caribbean Beach...
http://www.disneytouristblog.com/disneys-caribbean-beach-resort-review/

Wow thanks, I love this webpage but hadn't seen their updated CBR review. I'm loving the new rooms, they look great!!!

 

[FlaggNL]

Wow you are there earlier than we are We are staying in POFQ for 10 days next October You plans look great! Off course have a wonderful time and enjoy the pre feelings as much as we do And who knows see you around in WDW

 

[officialtom]

Here is a pretty favorable review of Caribbean Beach...
http://www.disneytouristblog.com/disneys-caribbean-beach-resort-review/

A second thank you for this! Confirmed we made the right choice this time!

 

[StephK]

Wow you are there earlier than we are We are staying in POFQ for 10 days next October You plans look great! Off course have a wonderful time and enjoy the pre feelings as much as we do And who knows see you around in WDW

Thanks @FlaggNL, I think you guys beat us to WDW by 2 days but we will be in Orlando before you yes. I will most definitely enjoy the pre-feelings!!!

 

[StephK]

So here are my rough plans for the first 5 days of our WDW time:

Day 1 October 18: We will wake up at the Hard rock hotel, universal and move to POR, Disney, what a great day! We were initially going use today as a park day at Universal but I think I would rather wake up, use their awesome looking pool in the morning then maybe fill a few hours doing some shopping before returning our hire car and catching the DME to POR! We should arrive mid-afternoon and I was thinking we’d catch the boat to Disney Springs and ease into our time at WDW, maybe catch a movie, do some shopping, have dinner and relax at our beautiful resort! Take it all in! We did this our last time & it worked well.

Day 2 October 19: Today is a Magic Kingdom day, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I would rather start my Disney time then seeing that beautiful castle! It is EMH from 8am and we have a 9.15 ADR at BOG which I snagged only last week so excited! We actually had dinner there back in 2013 when it was quite new and not as crazy popular, Beauty & the beast is one of my favourite Disney movies so i fell in love with the place.
We have fast passes for Splash, Space & SDMT but no more ADR’s so the rest of the day is up to us

Day 3 October 20: EMH at EPCOT so I’ve set aside the whole day for F&W... FPs for Soarin, SSE & Nemo

Day 4 October 21: Since we have 10 days and only 8 park tickets I’ve put this down as a non-park day, (I did promise Anthony we’d go at a slower pace ) plus I really want to check out some of the other resorts… So we have a lunch ADR @ beach’s & cream and a dinner ADR @ California grill to watch wishes . If it’s a hot day we might check out one of the water parks in between the two ....Okay so not so much slower lol oops

Day 5 October 22: HS! On our last trip we really didn’t enjoy this park. It was so busy that there was 60 min+ waits for every attraction by 10am, it was a boiling hot day and people were being pushy to add to it! I think we literally rode TSMM & TGMR and left by midday, hopefully this time we can slow it down and enjoy it a lot more. We have FP’s for RRRC, Star tours & ToT & an early 4.15pm Fantasmic FP meal booked at Hollywood Brown Derby. There is EMH at EPCOT tonight so we may make our way over after if were up to it

Thanks for reading, sorry if i waffle on a bit!! our next 5 days coming up soon!!!!

 

[FlaggNL]

So here are my rough plans for the first 5 days of our WDW time:

Day 1 October 18: We will wake up at the Hard rock hotel, universal and move to POR, Disney, what a great day! We were initially going use today as a park day at Universal but I think I would rather wake up, use their awesome looking pool in the morning then maybe fill a few hours doing some shopping before returning our hire car and catching the DME to POR! We should arrive mid-afternoon and I was thinking we’d catch the boat to Disney Springs and ease into our time at WDW, maybe catch a movie, do some shopping, have dinner and relax at our beautiful resort! Take it all in! We did this our last time & it worked well.

Day 2 October 19: Today is a Magic Kingdom day, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I would rather start my Disney time then seeing that beautiful castle! It is EMH from 8am and we have a 9.15 ADR at BOG which I snagged only last week so excited! We actually had dinner there back in 2013 when it was quite new and not as crazy popular, Beauty & the beast is one of my favourite Disney movies so i fell in love with the place.
We have fast passes for Splash, Space & SDMT but no more ADR’s so the rest of the day is up to us

Day 3 October 20: EMH at EPCOT so I’ve set aside the whole day for F&W... FPs for Soarin, SSE & Nemo

Day 4 October 21: Since we have 10 days and only 8 park tickets I’ve put this down as a non-park day, (I did promise Anthony we’d go at a slower pace ) plus I really want to check out some of the other resorts… So we have a lunch ADR @ beach’s & cream and a dinner ADR @ California grill to watch wishes . If it’s a hot day we might check out one of the water parks in between the two ....Okay so not so much slower lol oops

Day 5 October 22: HS! On our last trip we really didn’t enjoy this park. It was so busy that there was 60 min+ waits for every attraction by 10am, it was a boiling hot day and people were being pushy to add to it! I think we literally rode TSMM & TGMR and left by midday, hopefully this time we can slow it down and enjoy it a lot more. We have FP’s for RRRC, Star tours & ToT & an early 4.15pm Fantasmic FP meal booked at Hollywood Brown Derby. There is EMH at EPCOT tonight so we may make our way over after if were up to it

Thanks for reading, sorry if i waffle on a bit!! our next 5 days coming up soon!!!!

Plans look great! Oct 19th we have a different park as you (AK), 20th we are also in Ecpot, 21st will HS, 22nd is MK, since we do MNSSHP that night 23 is also MK! So who knows we will catch up inside WDW one of the days

 

[smk]

Grand plans! Sounds perfect!

 

[StephK]

Okay onto the second half of our trip

Day 6 October 23: Today is a little up in the air. We have to move from POR to CBR so that will take some time. I booked a breakfast ADR at Tusker House and one for dinner at Trails End. So I thought we’d visit Animal Kingdom but not 100% sure whether I’ll keep the ADR’s or not. Mainly because we’re having breakfast at Boma later in our trip & I’ve hear the menus are very similar. I've booked FP's for Kilimanjaro Safari, EE & Kali Rapids. I really want to catch the lion king show & have lunch at Flame Tree BBQ we love ribs!

Day 7 October 24: Today the only plans we have are a late dinner at O’hana which I am so excited for! Other than that we might hit a water park, do some water sports at the Poly or just relax who knows, I love these kinds of days with no plans!!

Day 8 October 25: Tonight we are going to MNSSHP YAY! I have FP’s between 4 & 7 for Anna & Elsa, BTMR and Winnie the pooh, I may change these though… Halloween isn’t thing here in Australia so we’ve decided to shop for our costumes when we arrive in Orlando, this makes it all the more exciting for me

Day 9 October 26: This morning we have our 9.00am ADR breakfast at Boma, yum! I thought we might then spend a few hours at Animal Kingdom before heading over to EPCOT. I’ve booked a 2pm lunch for Via Napoli which might be cutting things a little fine but there are no more times available now & I really want to try their pizza. I figure we’ll be done with breakfast at 10 so we’ll at least get 2-3 hours @ AK. I booked FP’s at EPCOT for after lunch, Mission Space, Test Track & Captain EO

Day 10 October 27: I’ve got FP’s for TSMM, The Indiana Jones show & ToT. they are early FP's so we’ll just see where the day takes us, we also have a dinner ADR @ Whispering Canyon, I can’t wait for this, Anthony can’t eat anything without ketchup so it’ll be a lot of fun

Day 11 October 28: Fly out day I couldn’t be sadder even typing this but here goes, I got us a Breakfast ADR at CRT, I am quite excited about this even if its not worth the price I would still love to have a meal in Cindy’s castle just once . So we will check out of CBR early leave our bags and head to the Magic Kingdom for one last time!! I then got Peter Pan, Haunted Mansion & SDMT FP’s all before 1pm. We’ll have to be back at CBR around 1.30 for the DME to pick us up around 2pm which breaks my heart but hey all good things have to come to an end.

We only have 24 days until we fly to the US now and its all coming up sooooo fast i cannot wait!!!