In the Home Stretch Now - A Very Princess Pre-Trip Report

My original "Very Early" PTR started almost a year ago. I figured it was a lot to slog through at this point. So now that I am under 50 days, I thought I'd start with a clean slate.

If you have read my 2010 Trip Report, you know most of the players this time around.

There's me. I'm the resident Disney World fan and obsessive planner. Yep, I'm the guy who started a Pre-trip report in Nov for a trip that wasn't scheduled yet.

There's my wife, Mindy. How do I put this delicately? Disney World is not her thing. In 2010, she vowed never to return again. Gradually, her position on the subject softened because the kids wanted to go back. But I doubt Mindy will ever be happy to go to Disney World. Hey, it usually makes for an interesting Trip Report.

Our oldest daughter, Josie, is 7 years old. This will be her 4th trip to WDW. She has memories of the previous trips, but more from hearing us tell stories about them. Some of her "memories" never actually happened. Incidently, we call her Joey at home. So, if I start talking about Joey, I'm referring to her.

And our youngest daughter, Kara, is three. To a large degree, she is the reason we are taking this trip. About this time last year, she became utterly fascinated with princesses. Fortunately, that fascination has only deepened in the past year. She can't wait to see all the princesses in person. She won't be able to ride a lot of rides (and sometimes won't ride the rides she is able to) but watching her tap into her inner princess should be lots of fun. She has also developed a fascination with Jake and the Neverland Pirates lately.

Finally, there's my mom. Mom's a teacher at Josie's school. Since we scheduled our trip during a rare "fall break" when Mom was also off work, she decided to come along. Mom power walks every day, so she is actually the person I am least worried about slowing us down. If anything, we could have trouble keeping up with her.

Having Mom along brings with it a lot of benefits. For one, we're splitting the cost of our room at Art of Animation. We would never have ponied up for a suite if not for that. For another, she'll help with the kids. But better still, Mindy will be far less likely to complain with my mom around. So, yay Mom!

At present, we're counting down from 49 days. I have started a countdown on my blog if anyone is interested. I am going to go over the plan in 49 parts leading up to the trip. So feel free to follow along there for daily updates. Naturally, I'll be posting frequent updates here as well as the final details of planning get hammered out.
 

lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
As I count down the 49 days remaining until my family’s Disney World trip, I thought I would walk through the agenda step by step. Once the trip is done, we’ll see how well the plan was executed. Because there’s no way everything goes according to plan. It never does.


We are leaving for Orlando first thing Thursday morning. I had wanted to fly out the night before, but that wasn’t in the cards. It would have meant leaving Wed afternoon right after school or taking a late flight which would have included a lay-over. Pulling into our hotel at 1:00 am with two little kids was not an appealing option.

I seriously considered leaving right after school on Wed. But Wed is Halloween. This may seem silly, but we changed our plans to accomodate trick or treating. We also floated the idea of trick or treating at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party on Thursday. But ultimately, we decided it was much cheaper to skip the party tickets, shave one night off our hotel stay and trick or treat at home.
You get much better candy at home anyway.

So, our flight leaves early on Thursday morning. We have lined up house-sitters to watch the family dog. We haven’t yet worked out our ride to the airport. If a relative isn’t available to drop us off, we will likely call a cab. Josie is hoping for the latter. She has a romanticized notion of cab rides.

This trip, we are traveling with my mom. So we will meet up with her and ride to the airport together. I will arrange to have donuts on hand to tide everyone over for the flight. Unless Delta changes our flight plan again, we should touch down in Orlando at 11:30.


From the Orlando airport, we will board the familiar Magical Express bus without having to wait on our luggage. I am estimating about an hour-long bus ride to our hotel, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort.
As I have mentioned in previous articles, we are staying in a Lion King suite. The Nemo suites were our first choice, but the “free dining” discount was not available. So we settled for a room with a jungle theme.

When I broke the news to the kids, I assured them we would still be able to visit the fabulous Nemo pool as well as the Little Mermaid themed section of the resort. They handled it well. In fact, they are definitely looking forward to it even though The Lion King is far from a family favorite.

Every morning, when I drive the kids to school, we pass a building with two lion statues on the roof. The statues are relatively small and I never really noticed them before. But Kara points them out when we pass. She says, “That is the Lion King where we are going on vacation.”

She’s exceptionally proud of this discovery. She also finds “Mickey heads” everywhere. “Mickey heads” are her version of “hidden Mickeys”. In theory, a “hidden Mickey” is the arrangement of three circles to look like Mickey ears. But Kara’s “Mickey heads” can be anything. They don’t even need to be circular.

I expect we will be arriving at Art of Animation around 12:30. 1:00 at the latest. We will need to check in which shouldn’t take terribly long. And this is where we have a tough decision. Lunch.

I can not over-state the importance of food on this trip. I have been accused in the past of glossing over meals or snacks. After several trips, I have learned the error of my ways. The troops can’t march on an empty stomach. After a busy morning with a continental breakfast, lunch will be crucial.

If it were my call to make, we would hop a bus for Epcot first thing. I would grab a bite at the Sunshine Seasons or just snack until our 6:30 dinner reservations. But realistically, I think our best bet will be to grab lunch at the Landscape of Flavors food court at our resort.

Mindy is a big fan of caprese sandwhiches which are on the Landscape of Flavors menu. It might mean delaying our arrival at Epcot. But a full wife is a happy wife. And a wife full of caprese will be much happier to be marched around the World Showcase until Illuminations.

By the time we get checked into our room, grab a bite to eat and hop a bus, I figure it will be roughly 4:00 before we get to Epcot. That will give us 5 hours in the park which is just barely enough time to warrant the use of a park ticket. And that is only because the price of the extra day on a 6-day ticket is minimal.

Next, we’ll take a look at what happens when we finally hit the parks. (Follow the link to read one day ahead.)
 

lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
When we left off, we should have checked into the Art of Animation Resort and grabbed a bite to eat at the Landscape of Flavors foodcourt. Hopefully, with the downtime, the girls will have re-energized from the flight in. With bellies full, we’ll grab a bus to Epcot.

In 2010, we actually spent quite a bit of time in Epcot. And last summer, my mom spent a full day there. As much as we all like Epcot, we had to make some choices about where to spend our time. When I added up the things we really wanted to see and do in Epcot on this trip, I was pretty sure we could squeeze it all in in half a day. Or, more to the point, we would struggle to fill an entire day at Epcot with little kids.


If everything goes according to plan, we should arrive at Epcot around 4:00. We have dinner reservations scheduled at 6:30, so that doesn’t allow us a lot of time. I figure we have time for one headliner attraction at most. Technically, Test Track will be down for refurbishment during our trip. But there is a slim chance we could catch a soft opening of the updated attraction. It’s unlikely, but if the opportunity presents itself, we will definitely take advantage of it.


My advice to Epcot newbies is always to grab a FastPass for Soarin’ first. Last trip, Josie and I had a bad experience on Soarin’. The effect was too realistic and she was convinced we were suspended over the Pacific. Now that she is older, she would like to give it another try. Assuming that the Test Track plan doesn’t work, Soarin’ will be next on our hit list. There is very little chance we can squeeze them both in.

As Disney World fans know, Soarin’ typically has the longest waits in the park. There is really no chance we’ll wait in the stand-by line. The only way we will ride Soarin’ this trip is if FastPasses are still available when we arrive. It’s not uncommon for all of the FastPasses to be gone by 4:00. Touringplans.com tells me not to get my hopes up. But since we’re travelling during the off season, there is some hope we could still grab the most coveted FP in the park.


Since we are arriving late in the day, the odds of riding Soarin’ are 50/50 at best. And the odds of a Test Track soft opening are probably 1 in 100. So our first stop will very likely be The Seas With Nemo and Friends. Mindy and the girls are big Nemo fans. We had a great time at Turtle Talk with Crush in 2010 and this year Kara will be old enough to enjoy it as well. When I asked for input, The Seas and Turtle Talk were the only must-do attractions in Epcot.


There really isn’t a whole lot left in Future World for us to squeeze in this trip. Mindy gets claustrophobic in Spaceship Earth, so we will probably skip it. Mission: Space is a no-go. We might hop on Journey into Imagination just because the lines are likely to be non-existent. But that is at most a few minutes carved out of our schedule.

The trip is bound to be character-intensive. So we will probably stop by the Epcot Character Spot at some point. I’m a Disney Visa holder, so if we can make it there before 4:30 we can get a free picture with the characters. Realistically, that seems unlikely given the time-table. But if we arrive earlier than planned or if Soarin’ FastPasses are all used up for the day, we just might make it to the Character Spot in time for the free photo.

If we miss the 4:30 deadline, we will hold off on the Character Spot until late in the evening. While Test Track is down for refurb, Disney is keeping the Character Spot and the Land Pavilion open an hour later than the rest of the park. Assuming this is still the case, we might visit Mickey and friends or even ride Soarin’ on our way out of the park.

Next up, World Showcase.
 

DisneyDebNJ

Well-Known Member
Yummm Caprese!! (salad, sandwich... doesnt matter just yummmm!!) I can see your bride has excellent taste! Your children will LOVE AOA! So far, perfect plan!! What about a few hours of MK after Epcot? I agree, a full day at Epcot with small kids is tough. You will hear "Dad can we go to see the Castle now???" a million times LOL
 

lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Mindy has exceptionally specific taste in food... and everything else. She usually likes her food as blancd as possible. But she has been on a caprese kick lately. And the caprese sandwhich may just make up for the lack of plain chocolate cupcakes she adored at Port Orleans.

We actually spent a great deal of time at Epcot in 2010. Epcot with little kids can be done. The girls aren't big on rides. They would be happy to hop from meet and greet to meet and greet with Kidcot stations and gift shops in between.

At one point, I had planned to park hop back to Epcot later in the week. But as I finalized the plans, we realized that this was our only hop of the trip. And it hardly seemed worth it to pay for a park hopper option on 5 tickets to hop once. So for now, we aren't planning to hop and Epcot just gets half a day. If we need to switch things up, we'll add the PH option on the fly.

The kids are very excited about AoA. I'm looking forward to it as well.
 

Gojira ゴジラ

Well-Known Member
Mindy is a big fan of caprese sandwhiches which are on the Landscape of Flavors menu. It might mean delaying our arrival at Epcot. But a full wife is a happy wife. And a wife full of caprese will be much happier to be marched around the World Showcase until Illuminations.

Nice plan! :D
 

NewfieFan

Well-Known Member
I just spent one night in AoA! The most impressive section by far is the Cars area. The theming there is almost like a little Carsland! Take some time during your vacay to trek around the resort and try to see the Cars section at night (very impressive). I think you'll like AoA and I know the kids will love it. It totally appeals to kids on every turn! The food court is pretty good. I only got to eat two meals but may I recommend the make-your-own pasta station (although avoid the chicken - too processed). It was very fresh and tasty!

Warning - the pool is huge! You'll probably be in the water with your kids so it may not be an issue for you. My kids are at the stage now where I can let them swim while I relax on beach chair. Well, not at this pool! I spent my time trying to keep track of the kids in the water. Also, because of the shape of the pool they can disappear around corners. Try one of the smaller pools if your kids will go for the idea... much more relaxed! However, the splash play area is really cute and I can see your girls having a blast there.
 

lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I just spent one night in AoA! The most impressive section by far is the Cars area. The theming there is almost like a little Carsland! Take some time during your vacay to trek around the resort and try to see the Cars section at night (very impressive). I think you'll like AoA and I know the kids will love it. It totally appeals to kids on every turn! The food court is pretty good. I only got to eat two meals but may I recommend the make-your-own pasta station (although avoid the chicken - too processed). It was very fresh and tasty!

Warning - the pool is huge! You'll probably be in the water with your kids so it may not be an issue for you. My kids are at the stage now where I can let them swim while I relax on beach chair. Well, not at this pool! I spent my time trying to keep track of the kids in the water. Also, because of the shape of the pool they can disappear around corners. Try one of the smaller pools if your kids will go for the idea... much more relaxed! However, the splash play area is really cute and I can see your girls having a blast there.

Thanks for the mini-report! From pictures, the Cars section looked the best. We have no interest in Cars. But it's so cool-looking, we're going to have to walk over and check it out. The Lion King section, where we are staying, seems like the weakest. But I'll gladly walk to the other areas to score free dining.

I enjoyed the pasta station at Port Orleans Riverside last trip. That was hard to beat. I assume the pasta station at AoA is similar?

When we stayed at POR, Josie prefered the small pools. The one time we went to the big pool was because Mindy forced the issue. I am sure we will check out the big pool at least once. But I wouldn't be surprised if we spent most of our time at the Little Mermaid pool. I won't have to sell that idea at all.

Although, Kara is convinced it will have actual mermaids in it. She wants to swim with Marina from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. I hope she's not too disappointed.
 

NewfieFan

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the mini-report! From pictures, the Cars section looked the best. We have no interest in Cars. But it's so cool-looking, we're going to have to walk over and check it out. The Lion King section, where we are staying, seems like the weakest. But I'll gladly walk to the other areas to score free dining.

I enjoyed the pasta station at Port Orleans Riverside last trip. That was hard to beat. I assume the pasta station at AoA is similar?

When we stayed at POR, Josie prefered the small pools. The one time we went to the big pool was because Mindy forced the issue. I am sure we will check out the big pool at least once. But I wouldn't be surprised if we spent most of our time at the Little Mermaid pool. I won't have to sell that idea at all.

Although, Kara is convinced it will have actual mermaids in it. She wants to swim with Marina from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. I hope she's not too disappointed.

God love her! You could always tell her Marina had to run off with Jake on an adventure. The Little Mermaid section will probably appeal to the girls anyway and if they like the smaller pools, score! Check out the walkways as you walk around, they certainly went through great lengths to theme everything. The walkway by Mermaid looks like sand and is even rippled close to the pool (like the waves have washed up on it). It also has bits of shell in it. I love looking for and noticing that stuff. *Disney geek*

Your mom is staying with you, correct? Are you guys taking the bedroom and putting the kids and grandma out in the common area? I heard from my parents that the sofa bed is not comfortable (they've slept on the pullouts in the suites at ASMusic and they said these were not near as comfortable). The pull down looks to be more comfortable (my kids slept in this bed). Maybe you should put grandma on the pull down and the kids on the sofa bed. However the pull down bed is quite cute and the kids may be asking to sleep in that one. The one thing I didn't like about the room is it felt very cramped once all the beds were pulled out. It seems the suites at ASMu are bigger or a different layout b/c there's more room to move around even after all sofa beds have been pulled out. The pull down bed is fairly easy to pull down and put back so if you could I would make the effort every morning to do that if possible. Might make you feel less cramped!?!
 

NewfieFan

Well-Known Member
Oh, another tip and you may already know this... I assume you'll try and track down Jake for a M&G. If he's not meeting outside by Disney Junior (b/c of weather or another reason) he's sometimes inside the Animation building (and sometimes not a line to be found).
 

lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
God love her! You could always tell her Marina had to run off with Jake on an adventure. The Little Mermaid section will probably appeal to the girls anyway and if they like the smaller pools, score! Check out the walkways as you walk around, they certainly went through great lengths to theme everything. The walkway by Mermaid looks like sand and is even rippled close to the pool (like the waves have washed up on it). It also has bits of shell in it. I love looking for and noticing that stuff. *Disney geek*

That sounds awesome. I will definitely point out details to the girls. Although sometimes they spot these things on their own. Especially Kara. She has a real eye for that sort of thing.

She claims to see "Mickey heads" everwhere. "Mickey heads" is what she calls hidden Mickey's. Although her definition of what constitutes a hidden Mickey is pretty broad. Circles are not requires. And pictures of Mickey count as "hidden" no matter how obvious they may be.

Your mom is staying with you, correct? Are you guys taking the bedroom and putting the kids and grandma out in the common area? I heard from my parents that the sofa bed is not comfortable (they've slept on the pullouts in the suites at ASMusic and they said these were not near as comfortable). The pull down looks to be more comfortable (my kids slept in this bed). Maybe you should put grandma on the pull down and the kids on the sofa bed. However the pull down bed is quite cute and the kids may be asking to sleep in that one. The one thing I didn't like about the room is it felt very cramped once all the beds were pulled out. It seems the suites at ASMu are bigger or a different layout b/c there's more room to move around even after all sofa beds have been pulled out. The pull down bed is fairly easy to pull down and put back so if you could I would make the effort every morning to do that if possible. Might make you feel less cramped!?!

Good tip. Yes, Mom should be coming with us. There is a small chance she may have to cancel to take care of my dad. He has surgery scheduled in the fall. They are supposed to schedule it after the trip, but we don't yet know for sure that will be the case.

Anyway, the plan is to let Mom have the main room. Aren't we sweet? Kara will want to sleep with Mindy anyway. So, I'm not exactly sure how we're going to divide up the other two beds. Since the pulldown is the only bed w/o a TV in front of it, that is where I will be sleeping. The girls will probably be on the sofa bed. I'm not sure if Mindy will be with them or with me. It probably depends on how many cupcakes I get my hands on. ;)

Oh, another tip and you may already know this... I assume you'll try and track down Jake for a M&G. If he's not meeting outside by Disney Junior (b/c of weather or another reason) he's sometimes inside the Animation building (and sometimes not a line to be found).

We were definitely planning to track down Jake. I was not aware of the back-up location. Good to know. Thanks!
 

lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
When we left off, we spent the first half of the day traveling, got settled in at the Art of Animation Resort, hopped a bus to Epcot and hit a couple of highlights in Future World. The odds are that we won’t have spent much time in Future World. The only “must do” on our list is The Seas With Nemo and Friends. Even with Turtle Talk, I doubt we will spend more than 40 minutes in the pavilion. If we spend more than an hour in Future World, it will be because we got lucky with a Test Track soft open or FastPasses for Soarin’.

The rest of our evening is pretty flexible save for two events. We have dinner with the princesses at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall at 6:30 and Illuminations starts at 9:00. I expect to have a little time to kill in World Showcase before dinner. It’s impossible to know how much time that will be. I would be surprised if it’s more than a half hour, but fortunately World Showcase does not require any kind of touring plan. We will just play it by ear until it is time to report for our reservations.


As I mentioned previously, I expect this will be a fairly character-intensive trip. There are two characters we plan to see who are unique to Epcot. So I will prioritize tracking them down for pictures, hugs and autographs. If we miss them tonight, we won’t get another chance to see them. The first is Duffy the Disney Bear. Yes, I know he’s a souless marketing ploy and not a legitimate character. But he’s cute. Josie likes him. He never has a line. And he’s only available at Epcot. So we will probably seek him out at the World Showcase.

The second character is the more important of the two. It’s Marie from the Aristocats. Kara’s middle name is Marie. She has a Marie stuffed animal from the Disney Store. So, she has a connection with the character (even though she has never really watched the movie). She calls Marie “my cat” and says she is going to see her in Disney World.


Truth is, it’s entirely possible that we will see Marie face to face and Kara will change her mind. Especially since this will be early in the trip and she won’t have a lot of meet and greets under her belt yet. (I have been training her with the Peanuts characters at Kings Island all summer and results vary with her mood.) But even with the outcome uncertain, this will likely be her only chance to see “her cat” so we’ll try to track her down before her shift ends at the France pavilion.

If you detected some uncertainty in the previous sentence it’s because there are rumors that Marie may be moving from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom. These rumors come from reliable sources, so I don’t doubt that it will happen. The question is when. It’s possible that Marie could be moved to Main Street before our trip. Which would actually be great news for us. That would allow us three more chances to see her. But assuming the change isn’t made yet, we’ll have to head to France to see her before dinner.


There are only a couple of rides in World Showcase and they are both on the same side of the lagoon as our dinner reservations. Last trip, The Gran Fiesta Tour (or “The Donald Duck Ride”) was a big hit. So that will be a must-do either before or after dinner. Maelstrom is extremely optional. But FastPass is available. So we should be able to grab some FastPasses before dinner and then ride it immediately afterwards.

I had originally intended to cover dinner in this installment. But I spent longer than I expected talking about stuffed bears and cats. With 46 installments left to fill, I’ll save dinner for the next installment.
 

wiigirl

Well-Known Member
Mindy is the kind of woman who knows exactly what she wants.

Exactly! :)
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Joshua&CalebDad

Well-Known Member
I can not over-state the importance of food on this trip. I have been accused in the past of glossing over meals or snacks. After several trips, I have learned the error of my ways. The troops can’t march on an empty stomach. After a busy morning with a continental breakfast, lunch will be crucial.

There will be no food until moral improves, :mad:

Been there done that. On our last trip I remember being at HS when my oldest, 4 at the time, was not very excited to be at the parks and meet Handy Mandy. Lo and behold my DS was hungry and needed a snack. Once he had his popcorn he was good to go.

It's amazing to me the difference food can make.
 

lebeau

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
There will be no food until moral improves, :mad:

Been there done that. On our last trip I remember being at HS when my oldest, 4 at the time, was not very excited to be at the parks and meet Handy Mandy. Lo and behold my DS was hungry and needed a snack. Once he had his popcorn he was good to go.

It's amazing to me the difference food can make.

It really is. In 2008, we went to MNSSHP. We got there around 4. Mindy and Joey were dragging pre-dinner and post nap. We spent roughly an hour and a half obtaining the proper combination of snacks and sweets to energize them for the party. Once that was done, everyone was all smiles until the sugar crash. Then we had an emergency hot dog infusion.

In 2010, it was our first time on the dining plan. I had it all figured out in advance to maximize our efficiency. Counter service lunch and table service dinner, right? Snack whenever you want it. Maybe use a snack credit for breakfast. I had brought a selection of Nutrigrain bars, Pop Tarts and other quick breakfasts for efficiency.

The very first morning, Mindy lead a mini-mutiny over breakfast. When I brought up the "quick breakfast" plan we had all agreed upon before the trip, her response was "You were serious about that?" Well, yeah. We all agreed and I packed them. So, yeah, I was serious.

I caved quickly on the condition that she eat breakfast at Sunshine Seasons while I obtained Soarin' FPs. Upon consuming her breakfast platter, the mutiny was over. Her disposition remained sunny until lunchtime. I learned a valuable lesson. She had a counter service breakfast every morning for the rest of the trip.
 

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