Flowers and Gardens and Sunshine, Oh My!

[Megara84]

Originally Posted by Goldia

I love a catchy title! I've been humming follow the yellow brick road while reading all about your plans. It sounds like you're going to have a fab time.

Reading about your memories of watching videos with your parents and your carpet picnic was lovely, what great memories to have!

For what it's worth we don't really bother with early breakfasts as we're just not that big eaters in the morning, plus first thing is a great time to hit the rides and I don't like 'wasting' time sitting and eating when we could be doing stuff. Last summer we only had 1 breakfast ADR and that was for 10.45! This summer I'm going to do the same. Lots of people love the early morning buffet though. If we're peckish then we grab a snack, cinnamon loaf from Gastons yes you are right it's yummy, Or the Cheshire cat tail was also really tasty...but there are so many fab snack options.

I'm also a lover of the DFB videos and am totally addicted to watching them and have very many notebooks filled with food wish lists!

For the FP I've always tried to do the 10, 11 and noon slots or as close as possible. We tend to do rides from park open until nearly 11am, while lines are short, then FP 1 followed straight away by FP 2. Often we will then stop for an early lunch (cos everyone is starving as I don't let them eat breakfast) then fp 3. We have had some success in getting 4th, 5th etc FP even for popular rides...Soarin at Epcot, the mountains at MK...but usually these are for later in the day as we do tend to leave the parks by around 2pm and have a swim in the resort before heading out for the evening.

Any way, whatever you decide I'm sure it will be fab and you'll be planning your return trip on the flight home!

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Love that you don’t let your family eat breakfast! The power you have! I think we will go with morning fp, mostly for peace of mind. It makes me a little anxious thinking that the morning could be just queuing unless we follow a very prescribed tour plan.

[sheluk]

Fab pre trippie, for your first WDW trip together it sounds like you’re smashing all the highlights / yet also sounds relaxing - you just report back so I can try and work this balance into my trips

Agree about moving the CP booking.

Even if your first fast pass is in first hour of opening you still don’t have to use it till your hour is nearly up, then go straight to your second. So you’ll still have almost an hour to make the most of no lines!

[Megara84]

Originally Posted by sheluk

Fab pre trippie, for your first WDW trip together it sounds like you’re smashing all the highlights / yet also sounds relaxing - you just report back so I can try and work this balance into my trips

Agree about moving the CP booking.

Even if your first fast pass is in first hour of opening you still don’t have to use it till your hour is nearly up, then go straight to your second. So you’ll still have almost an hour to make the most of no lines!

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Ah thanks! Yeah we’ve put a fair amount of thought into it and I think it’s shaping up to be a pretty fun holiday.

We have moved our reservation now, got one at 10:30 instead. I think this will work out much better for us anyway and so massive bonus if it means we’ll be able to get rides done early on our first morning.

[Megara84]

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: WE HAVE FEWER THAN 60 DAYS TO GO. This is finally starting to feel like it’s actually happening and I’m not sure what to do with my levels of excitement.
The last to do list left ESTAS, FP, actually paying for the trip and packing still left to do. I’m pleased to announce that we’ve achieved 2 ½ out of four of those…

ESTAS:
This was something I was very worried about but in the end was incredibly simple and I did mine and my husbands in my lunch break. I’ve never been to America before but I have travelled a lot to the Middle East and to Africa, as has my Husband. We haven’t travelled anywhere on the no fly list but still, I’d convinced myself that this would be it. The end of the fun. We’d be denied Estas and then be forced to live sadly at home forever, never allowed to go to Disney World. Being so convinced it would end badly, you’d have thought I would have tried to get Estas as early as possible, to make sure it would all be okay. That’s not how I roll though, I prefer to carry around some low level stress for as long as possible.

We won though, hooray! We are one step closer to being allowed on American soil.

Fast Passes:
I outsourced the planning of this to my husband again and just dealt with the actual booking. We got everything we wanted, roughly when we wanted it, which is great. Although I will say it’s nowhere near as easy as booking ADRs and not nearly as pleasurable an experience. BUT it’s necessary and actually, looking through our plans now, with the ADRs and FP all lined up together, I love the fact that we have these plans I can look over and get excited about.

I think we’re in for a pretty good first morning in MK


$$$:
So, as I said, we’ve achieved 2 ½ things and this is the half. We have the money in the bank but Disney Pay Day isn’t until next week and I’m keeping the money in my account until then, in the vain hope of trying to squeeze as much interest out of it as I can before handing over fistfuls of cash.

Having said that, I’m very much looking forward to paying the final balance. When that’s done then no matter what, we’ll be going. Even if we don’t manage to save any spending money at all, we’ll have park tickets, somewhere to sleep and probably more food than we can eat! Thanks to the update to the DDP we’ll also able have to have a cocktail or two as well. I can’t see that being a problem though, we have two months to save up and as we’re not big merchandise buyers, we’ll have more than enough to cover the obligatory perfume and sunglasses at the airport and a night out or two while we’re there. JELLY ROLLS HERE WE COME.

What’s next?
Well really all that’s left is packing and then going. The packing won’t start until the weekend before we go. Mostly because I’m away with work for the whole week before we leave but also because I do not enjoy packing.

There is one aspect of packing I can get on board with though and that’s shopping. I don’t necessarily need to buy new clothes but I do want some soooooo, I’ve been shopping already. Just for a few bits, new shorts, a couple of dresses that sort of thing. We’ll need to get all the necessary sun cream, bug spray etc but again, we’ll make a day out of it the weekend before we go. That sounds like the worst day out ever actually, I’ll tack lunch in an American themed restaurant onto it to jazz it up a bit!

I’m also looking for a good, light weight foundation that will stand up to the Florida heat but is good for sensitive skin…does such a thing even exist? I’m not sure to be honest but if you have any good recommendations, I’m all ears! (LOL).

Actually, one thing I’ve been giving a lot of thought to is the bag I’m going to carry. Now, I am AWFUL at taking care of my own possessions and frequently lose important documents, wallets, phones, items of clothing (!) . This is a recipe for disaster when I’ll need to carry my passport around for the purpose of purchasing alcoholic beverages. My husband will carry a bag but I don’t want to have my money, phone and various lip balms in his bag and not immediately accessible to me. This was a real quandary and I was getting a little worried about it/hugely overthinking it. And then it occurred to me, the perfect solution… A BUMBAG! Genius. So, this will be my park bag:

Practical and beautiful. The Mary Poppins of Bumbags.


And I think that’s it for now. We have 60 days until we fly (or 58 and a certain number of hours at the time of writing this) and have work trips, hen dos, family outings between now and then. I can’t tell if the time is going to fly by or drag on endlessly, I think it’ll be a mixture of both. To keep us going we’re making a list of Disney films we haven’t seen for a while, that we need to watch before we go. We kicked that off last weekend and watched Avatar. Now this is possibly going to be an unpopular opinion, but I remembered immediately why I didn’t love it the first time around. I am looking forward to seeing Pandora though and I managed to get two FOP fast passes, which I am very pleased about.

Also on the list are Three Caballeros, Mulan and Mary Poppins (my all-time favourite).

I cannot believe we go in less than two months!

[Megara84]

Hello!

We're on 39 days! In the 30s! I have 16 days left in the office before I'm off on a work trip followed immediately by our holiday. I didn't actually plan that but three weeks out of the office will be delightful.

That is just one of the reasons today of that has been brilliant. Not only is it Friday, it's also pay day, we got our Magic Disney Post today AND found out that they do have an after hours event in the Magic Kingdom! The actual dream!

I had really been hoping there would be some after hours antics we could get involved in but I know there weren't any in May last year so wasn't holding out hope. We're definitely going to be going but we need to fiddle with our plans a little to fit it in. An acceptable Saturday morning activity I think!