Pre-Trip Parties, running and treking Oh My! Oct 2017 PTR

Welcome to our PTR! Our trip is 59 days away so I figured it’s about time to get a PTR started!

My sister Karen (@dancingtodisney) usually writes these so this will probably have input from both of us, you can check out our previous trips that Karen has written about here:
Jan 2016 (incl Dopey Challenge!)
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...disney-tr-vlogs-complete.912600/#post-7206810
Oct 2014
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...ine-and-dine-dashing-tr-updated-12-15.894739/
2013
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...icious-dont-believe-us-ask-the-dishes.875066/

We have another packed trip including a halloween party, christmas party, Keys to the Kingdom tour, Wild African Safari Trek and if that wasn’t enough we’re also taking part in the Wine and Dine weekend 5K, 10K and half marathon! And obviously since we're going for the Wine and Dine races we're there for the food and wine festival which means LOTS of food

Dates:
Arriving Friday 27th October
Leaving: Saturday 8th November

15 nights in Disney!!!

Where:
Old Key West / Animal Kingdom Lodge

We’re staying in OKW for the most part. We stayed there on our trip with the family last year and loved this resort! Me and Karen als - ave 2 nights in AKL! We’ve stayed there on our last 3 trips now so we feel like this is sort of our home resort and can’t imagine a Disney trip without it.

Cast:

Me (Rachel) – 24

Karen – 29 (which means she’s thirty next year…which sounds like a good excuse for another trip )

Our Mam – A lady never tells her age

Our Dad – Younger than my mam

We've got the dinning plan this year for our full stay! Our ADRs are booked and they look like this:
Crystal Palace (Breakfast)
Kona Cafe (Breakfast & Dinner)
Biergarten
Be Our Guest (Dinner)
Tuskar House (Breakfast)
Yak & Yeti
Skippers Canteen
Teppan Edo
Ohana
Sanaa
Jiko
Boma (Breakfast)
California Grill
Yaughtsman
Narcoossee's

Sidenote: Karen is the planner and I pretty much just tell her the places I want to go to. So ADR day came and Karen was in Disneyland Paris! I took on all the stress of booking the ADRs (bare in mind that for our last trip I had the job of booking just one of our ADRs, be our guest, and managed to book it for the same day instead of when we would actually be in Florida). Anyway, I managed to book them all and since then about 90% have been changed! All that stress for nothing!

Let us know what you think of our restaurant choices, we've got a few that we've never been to before so would love hearing your food suggestions

That's it for the intro. I'll post a breakdown of our plans for each day soon. We just booked our fastpasses yesterday so it's starting to feel very close now

 

[PacNWTigger]

Following along. I enjoyed your Dopey Challenge trip report, so I'm looking forward to your new adventure.

 

[Matt and Kelly]

This sounds like an amazing trip. How cool to go to both parties and celebrate 2 holidays in one trip!

 

[RachelDoesDisney]

So here is our plans for the first week!
​

Karen has a very detailed spreadsheet (it’s colour coded!) so I can't take much credit for all of the planning!

Travel Day 27th October:

We’re flying with United from Dublin to Newark and Newark to Orlando. Some of you may know from other trip reports that Karen lives in London while the rest of us live in Dublin so she’s going to fly to Dublin a couple of days before hand.

We’re arriving at MCO at 4.30pm. Our plan is to pick up the rental car and head straight to OKW and then on to Epcot to eat around the world.
The bad thing about getting a car rental.. no magical express for us!

We might decide to just go to Disney Springs this night either if we get to OKW later than expected. One of the things we love about OKW is how close it is to Disney Springs.

We’ve got no reservations on this day but have booked some fastpasses in Epcot:
6PM Spaceship Earth
7.30PM Character Spot
8.35PM Frozen

First full day – 28th October

We of course have to go to MK on the first day!
We’ve got an ADR for Crystal Palace at 8.20am so we will be up bright and early.
Our fastpasses look like this:
10:20 Space Mountain
11:25 Thunder Mountain
1:05 Mine Train

The plan is to leave around lunch time and head to one of my favourite places…Walmart Don’t ask why I just love huge supermarkets, it's sad I know haha! Since we’ve got the dining plan we don’t really need to buy food but we like to have a few bits in our room (water, bagels, snacks etc). Kona Café is booked for dinner so we will probably spend some time back at OKW before that. Then it’ll be back to MK to see some fireworks!

Sunday 29th October

Keys to the Kingdom tour!!

We’ve wanted to do this for so long, we’d hoped to go last year but didn’t have the time. The tour starts at 8am and is a 5 hours tour. Lunch is included but I can’t remember where it is! Our mam is sitting this one out she likes a more chilled out holiday which is why our parents loved stayed on site so much last year, it means she can spend time by the pool and join us in the parks whenever she wants.

Our plans for the evening our in Epcot and these are the fastpasses we have booked:

2.20PM Spaceship Earth
3.40PM Character
4.40PM Soarin

We’ve got an ADR in Biergarten at 5.45pm. We’ve done this one before at lunch time and loved the food but it was pretty quiet and so it didn’t have much of an atmosphere.. we’re hoping to get the full experience this time! After that we plan on spending the evening in the world showcase which will most likely consist of more food for the food and wine booths and possibly some cocktails!

Monday 30th October

Universal day!

We only plan on spending one day at Universal/Islands of Adventure this year. We love the rides there but our mam isn’t a big fan of thrill rides so doesn’t come to Universal with us so we figured a day is enough. I think we will end up buying the express passes to make sure we get everything done. It’ll probably work out quite expensive to just do one day but we really want to see the new Kong ride and we also all love Harry Potter so we have to go! We are hoping we’ll get everything we want done by about 2ish so we can then meet up with our mam at Disney Springs for a late lunch. If you’ve read the last trip report then you’ll know she never passes up the opportunity to go to Wolfgang Puck to use her quick service credit!

We’re spending the evening in MK and have a late Be Our Guest ADR at 8.20.

These are the fastpasses for the day:

5.35PM Mine Train
6.40PM Peter Pan
7.50PM Rapunzel

Tuesday 31st October

Animal Kingdom Day!!

Words can’t explain how excited our dad is to see the new Avatar stuff in AK.. he’s not happy that he has to wait until the Tuesday to go! He’s a big fan of the movie (as I am too but it’s very long to watch multiple times..which he insists on!). We plan to get there early for the EMH in AK that morning and head straight to Pandora!

These are the fastpasses:

9.10AM Meet Mickey & Minnie
11.50AM Safari
6PM Avatar Flight of Passage

Karen booked the fastpasses on Monday and the earliest time for flight of passage was 1 o’clock and since this is when we plan on taking a break from the parks we decided a later one would make more sense!

We’ve got an ADR at Tusker house at 10.40am, we love going around this time because you’re there when they do a changeover from breakfast to lunch which means MORE FOOD OPTIONS!

We booked Tuskar house with the Rivers of Light package so we have that format 7. We also have an ADR for Yak and Yeti on this day but since we want to have a break from the parks in the afternoon we might skip it. There’s so many great quick service places in AK now that we don’t mind too much if we don’t go, plus it means we still have somewhere new to try next time.

Wednesday 1st November

Mickey’s not so scary Halloween party!

We’ve left this day pretty open since we have the party until midnight. Other than our ADR at Skippers Canteen before the party we don’t really have any plans.

Fastpasses for the day:

1.30pm Meet Mickey
2.30PM Jungle Cruise
4.10PM Pirates of the Caribbean

Thursday 2nd November

Expo day!

Me, Karen and my dad are signed up for all 3 races for the wine and dine weekend. My mam will also be joining us for the 5K!

We plan to be at the expo first thing to check out the merch. Depending on the crowds we might wait until later on to collect the bibs. After the expo I think we’ll use our quick service credit at one of the resorts (probably Art of Animation). Then we’re going to go shopping at eat off property. There’s a place called Yellow Dog Eats that we love. They do the best nachos ever!

Exhibit A (stolen from google)

Told you!

For the evening we might pop over to Hollywood Studios to see the star wars fireworks. Then it’ll be bed early to get up in time for our 5K.

Friday 3rd November

5K day!

This will be an early wakeup call as the 5K starts at 5.30am which will probably mean us getting up around 3.

The 5K is in AK this year which we’re really excited about, we thought it might be in Epcot again which we do love but got to do that course during Dopey. Afterward we plan on going to Hollywood studios straight from the 5K. These are the fastpasses we have booked:
9.25AM Toy Story Mania
10.35AM Tower of Terror
12PM Frozen Sing Along
One thing this trip is lacking is time in Hollywood studios. With all the construction going on and the little amount of rides we're not too pushed about spending too much time in Hollywood studios. We do love the rides that are there so we'll make sure to get on those a couple of times anyway. Again it's one where there isn't much for our mam to do since she won't go on Rockin Rollercoaster or TOT (crazy I know!).
We will probably leave around lunch time since we'll have been up so early for the 5K. We've got nothing planned then until our 4pm ADR at Teppan Edo. This is a first for us and one I've wanted to go to for a really long time! I've never been to a Hibachi restuarant and have heard such good things about this one! We'll spend the evening in Epcot but probably won't stay out too late sine we will have a another early wake up call for our 10K!

That's our first weeks plans! I'll post the second week soon. We're officially going to Florida next month now!

 

[RachelDoesDisney]

Following along. I enjoyed your Dopey Challenge trip report, so I'm looking forward to your new adventure.

Thanks, thankfully not quite as much running this time Glad to have you following along!

This sounds like an amazing trip. How cool to go to both parties and celebrate 2 holidays in one trip!

Thanks! We went this time of year once before and loved it It's great getting to see the two sets of decorations up and even better getting both parties in Plus with food and wine on too there's so much to do!

 

[riverside]

Your plans look great!! I did the Keys to the Kingdom tour a few years ago and it was a blast. I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Just a heads up on the Universal pricing--you're right, it's quite pricey. In June 3 of us went & got the one day, park to park, unlimited express pass ticket. The total came to 923.00 for 3 tickets. Yours may hopefully be a bit cheaper since it's probably not considered peak time then. I believe the unlimited express pass was only 20.00 more than the regular express pass(where you can only ride each ride once) but at the end of it all I think that was a waste of money for us. There wasn't a single ride that we rode more than once.

Can't wait to read more!!

 

[lisak09]

Hi, fellow Dubliner here. We're back from Orlando about three weeks now and the post Disney depression is very bad this year! I've been using everybody's trip reports to help
I've read your past reports and really enjoyed them, looks like you've got another fantastic trip lined up! Every year I say I'm going to buy Universal Express and never do! It just seems really expensive and not worth it. I wish they would come up with something similar to fastpass+, we really liked the Kong ride though, hope you do too. Can't wait to read more

 

[Gurt]

So glad you guys are back iv previously loved Karen's previous reports, even got my mum reading the last one she is so like your mam on the dining plan, so much so it became a bit of a joke on our last trip with the whole 'it's free'

 

[RachelDoesDisney]

Your plans look great!! I did the Keys to the Kingdom tour a few years ago and it was a blast. I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Just a heads up on the Universal pricing--you're right, it's quite pricey. In June 3 of us went & got the one day, park to park, unlimited express pass ticket. The total came to 923.00 for 3 tickets. Yours may hopefully be a bit cheaper since it's probably not considered peak time then. I believe the unlimited express pass was only 20.00 more than the regular express pass(where you can only ride each ride once) but at the end of it all I think that was a waste of money for us. There wasn't a single ride that we rode more than once.

Can't wait to read more!!

I'm so excited for Keys to the Kingdom! I can't wait to do it
Yeah it is really expensive to go for a day, not too much cheaper than a two week pass! Yeah I don't think we'd need the multi-ride express pass either. Since we only really plan on spending a half day there I doubt there's any rides that we'll go on more than once unless there's no queue at all.

Hi, fellow Dubliner here. We're back from Orlando about three weeks now and the post Disney depression is very bad this year! I've been using everybody's trip reports to help
I've read your past reports and really enjoyed them, looks like you've got another fantastic trip lined up! Every year I say I'm going to buy Universal Express and never do! It just seems really expensive and not worth it. I wish they would come up with something similar to fastpass+, we really liked the Kong ride though, hope you do too. Can't wait to read more

Hi Nice to meet a fellow Dubliner on the boards! I know what you mean about the post trip depression it's really tough but I do the same with reading trip reports after, you can relive it through everyone elses trips!
Thanks! Yeah it's pretty jam packed but will be so worth it I know we've actually said we'd buy it the last two trips as well and haven't. I think this time since we only have one Univeral day we'll bite the bullet. We used to spend so much time in Universal on our trips when we were younger and now it gets a couple days at most. The last time we only went for a day too and ended up not getting on a huge amount of rides so I think we'll do the express pass this time to make sure it's worth going there for the day. Even though it will hurt our wallets a lot So excited to see the Kong ride I've heard good things

So glad you guys are back iv previously loved Karen's previous reports, even got my mum reading the last one she is so like your mam on the dining plan, so much so it became a bit of a joke on our last trip with the whole 'it's free'

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the previous trip reports! I'd been creeping on the boards for years so decided it's about time I actually write something, hopefully I'll live up to Karen's standards. Haha no way that's so funny, it's become a running joke for us now too!

 

[Gurt]

The trip is only a month off now @RachelDoesDisney any updates / news?

 

[*Flynnderella*]

Looking forward to this trip report!! I've read the previous reports & really enjoyed them! So cool reading about the races you do because I know for a fact I'll never be fit enough to do them myself

We went to Universal this May and bought our tickets through the American website as it was so much cheaper than the UK! We paid $169pp for 2 parks 1 day so that works out about £135 ish which we thought was quite good!

Your trip will be here before you know it!!!

 

[ScarletBegonias]

I'm in! Really enjoyed reading along on the last TR!

 

[RachelDoesDisney]

The trip is only a month off now @RachelDoesDisney any updates / news?

Yes, will update in the next couple of days! Just back from a trip to Disneyland Paris so I haven't had a chance to update yet.

Looking forward to this trip report!! I've read the previous reports & really enjoyed them! So cool reading about the races you do because I know for a fact I'll never be fit enough to do them myself

We went to Universal this May and bought our tickets through the American website as it was so much cheaper than the UK! We paid $169pp for 2 parks 1 day so that works out about £135 ish which we thought was quite good!

Your trip will be here before you know it!!!

Thanks Glad you enjoyed reading about the other trips! I never thought I would be doing them myself tbh, before Dopey I never ever considered taking up running
That's a good tip, I remember looking at one of the American sites a couple weeks ago and thinking the same, maybe we'll go with that. Should probably get those booked soon! Only 4.5 weeks to go

I'm in! Really enjoyed reading along on the last TR!

Yay thanks for joining, hopefully you'll enjoy this one too

 

[RachelDoesDisney]

WEEK 2!!
​

Hi! Finally updating this again since we go in 3 weeks! We've all been busy lately as we did the Disneyland Paris run weekend (yes more running I know!) but now with that over with it's time to focus on the big trip

Saturday 4th November
10K day!
Another early start for a run through Epcot

After the 10K we’ll have a rest back at OKW before our reservation for breakfast at Kona Café.
Myself and Karen have had breakfast here before but it’s a first for our parents. Then the day will be spent at MK, these are our fastpasses for the day
12.00 Meet Mickey
1.00 Space
2.00 Mine Train

Then in keeping with the Polynesian themed day we’re going to Ohana for dinner at 6pm. We’ve all done this one before and love it. Plus the noodles make for some good carb loading for our half marathon the next day That can be our excuse for eating way too much of them anyway

We’ve no plans for the evening since we have another early start the next day so we’ll probably have an early night.

Sunday 5th November:

Half Marathon Day!

Another bright and early start (more like pitch black start) to the day & after a couple of hours our running will be done for another trip!

Myself and Karen check into AKL on this day so we plan to just chill out and enjoy the resort for most of the day. The pool at Jambo house is so nice and I think after 3 early mornings we’ll enjoy the rest.

We’ll then be heading over to Kidani Village for an ADR in Sanaa at 2.50PM.. two words...bread service
We're planning on meeting some people in the Yacht and Beach Club before we go to the Wine and Dine party at Epcot. We just found out it's on until 1am, which is both really good and really bad (hello three early starts plus lots of running equals a lot of tired people!). That being said we will stay for the whole thing I'm sure

The party starts at 9, it’ll just be me Karen and our dad for the party. My mam doesn’t have a ticket since she’s not doing the half and we don’t think it’s worth paying the $70 for an extra ticket. She’ll be happy to stay at the resort and have an early night.

The only fastpass we have is for Frozen at 8.05. Hopefully we'll get to try loads of the food and wine booths with hopefully not crazy long lines.

Monday 6th November:

This is the day we have the Wild African Safari Trek. I’ve wanted to do this for ages but Karen wasn’t interested until she watched a vlog of other people doing the trek and decided we had to do it.

We’re spending the day at AK, arriving in the morning and heading straight for Pandora

9.20AM Avatar Flight of Passage
11.20AM Safaris
5.50PM Rivers of Light (in case we don’t get to see it the previous week)

Our trek starts at 12 and is 3 hours long. Lunch in included in a place called Boma (not the AKL Boma!). Hoping it won’t be too hot on this day or it could be very tiring!

After the trek we’ll spend some more time in AK (once we’re not too tired), then head back to AKL for our Jiko reservation at 6PM. The evening afterwards will be spent in AKL since this will be our last night there.


Tuesday 7th November:

You can’t stay in AKL without having breakfast at Boma, so that’s where we’ll be at 7.30!

Then it’s off to Epcot for some more food and wine action. For those that don’t know this year they have 35 food and wine booths to celebrate 35 years of Epcot..that’s a lot of food!

We’re saving our fastpasses for later in the day when we go to MK

4.30PM Big Thunder
5.30PM Mine Train
6.30PM Space

Our dinner ADR is in California Grill. We go here on every trip. Me and Karen love sushi so it’s a must! We’ll be there while Happily ever After is on in MK so we’ll go out to the viewing deck to watch that too before heading home.

Wednesday 8th November

This day is pretty open, we don’t have much plans other than dinner at the Yachtsman at 6.40PM.
We’ve got breakfast booked at BOG that morning too but we aren’t sure yet if that’s where we’ll want to go for the day.
I think we’ll just end up going to whichever park we feel we haven’t had much time in.
There will also be a few visits to Disney springs during this trip since we're staying at OKW we haven't scheduled exact times but will go whenever we've some free time. I'm so excited about all the new shops they've got, especially Sephora.. I've been looking at the new Fenty range so I can't wait to spend too much time (&money) in Sephora.

Thursday 9th November

This morning we plan on shopping at eating off property, we like to do a couple meals off property since we've got some other places that we like to visit too. Before we started staying onsite we never ate at Disney, there was a lot of Outback steakhouse and TGI dinners had so we may go back to the outback this time Then it'll be back to OKW to rest and get ready for Mickey's very Merry Christmas Party!!

Friday 10th November

Our last full day
Of course the last day has to be spent in Magic Kingdom Again no real solid plans we'll just do whatever we feel like getting done before we have to leave. We've also got a reservation for Narcoossee's, we went here for the first time last year and LOVED it! I'm so excited to go back because it was probably my favourite meal last time There's another Christmas party on this night so we're thinking we'll go to Epcot unless we REALLY want to go to MK..then we'll probably buy party ticket We haven't decided yet and probably won't until the end of our trip.

Saturday 11th November

Home time
It's a tradition to spend the last morning in MK so that's exactly what we're going to do and try to pretend we're not actually going home At least since we have a rental car there's no tragical express for us. Our flight isn't until 7pm so we actually have a decent amount of time before we need to head to the airport. We've got no reservations booked, we'll probably plenty of quick service credits eft to spend though!

And that's it!
Would love to know what you think of the plan, is anyone else there around the same time? Or has anyone else been to wine and dine yet and got any suggestions? I've watched some vlogs of this years so already have a lot that I want!

I can't believe it's only 3 weeks away now! We will probably both post some up updates on here between now and then and maybe even a few pictures while we're in WDW!

The only good thing about a WDW trip ending? Reliving it through the TR afterwards

 

[Gurt]

Plans are looking great I am excited for you guys

 

[RachelDoesDisney]

Plans are looking great I am excited for you guys

Thank you, less than two weeks on the countdown now

 

[RachelDoesDisney]

4 Days to go now!