theDIBB - The 3 Mouseketeers Non-Stop WDW Adventure

DH has convinced me that I should do a pre-trippy, as then the social pressure will encourage me to actually do a full trip report - so here goes!

Cast:
Me - Eternally 21 courtesy of Tinkerbell on my first WDW birthday trip back in 2010. (Although I may seem more like 40-something outside of WDW!). Favourite Character - Mrs Incredible

DH - Also 40-something, but also appears much younger in WDW due to his child-like glee in all things Disney and Star Wars (he was unbelievably gleeful when they became the same thing!). Favourite character - Ralph (from Wreck-it Ralph) or perhaps Chewie. It's hard to tell, he cried when he met each of them!

DD - 14 year old Disney fanatic, whose excitement about returning to Disney cannot be measured using existing technology. Favourite character - Piglet

Location:
Port Orleans Riverside. This will be our 6th stay - I might have considered staying somewhere else, but DH and DD consider it their second home now!
We were very lucky to be upgraded to a Royal Room on our 3rd trip, and we enjoyed it so much that we've booked one again.

Original Plan - and amended plan, and amended plan
When we originally booked, back in April 2017, as Disney announced free dining, we were staying for 14 nights. Purely Disney, possibly Discovery Cove (but no dolphin swim, as we'd done that last time). We decided to upgrade from the QSDP to DDP - as my original suggestion of paying for just a couple of meals OOP, became unworkable when DD and DH were completely unable to reduce their list of 'must do' restaurants!

Then we saw the Black Friday Discovery Cove offer, and somehow we booked the Dolphin Swim too... (well, it was a bargain - almost!). We ended up booking a Elite Package Cabana too, as DD and DH burn easily in the sun (and if you're booking a cabana, it's almost as cheap to get the Elite package once you've factored in the photo package - at least that's my justification! ). And we are going to be celebrating my birthday whilst we are there.

Then we were looking at Park Hours, and all the indications were that the 17th August was going to be the first MNSSHP - as crazy as that sounds. Perhaps even more crazy, that was the day we were just to arrive back at Manchester- and our desire to go to the Halloween party was so great, that we gambled on extending our holiday 2 extra days (EVEN THOUGH DISNEY HAD NOT YET CONFIRMED THE PARTY DATES! ). But, hey, this unusual impulsiveness paid off, and even if it hadn't we still had two extra nights at Riverside! And extending the booking so early meant more flexibility with getting the ADRs we wanted.

In order to not bust our budget too much, we ended up exchanging our direct Manchester to Orlando return flights, to indirect flights. Originally we were going to change in Boston, but the flight times changed, meaning we'd be leaving Disney at about 6am the morning after the Halloween Party. Did I mention our 14 year old DD? No way our teenager is going to manage that! So we've ended up going home via New York (JFK instead).

Also in a "cost saving" measure, we've not upgraded our 14 day Ultimates to 21 days, but I really want them to be valid on the last day (MNSSHP) so we can use photopass. So since we have Seaworld admission with Discovery Cove, we are going to spend our first Park day there, so that we don't trigger our Disney tickets straight away.

I've planned, changed the plan, consulted DH and DD, changed the plan again. Added Dessert parties, and changed the plan again!

I've now printed it out... so it's definite. (Until of course we arrive and go off plan! )
As Snart (Arrow/Legends of Tomorrow) says "plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan". But my spreadsheet and Dibb planner looks very pretty!