Brett, Jo & Marceline's Festive Adventure

[Happyhaunt1000]

INDEX

Hello everyone, and welcome to our November 2017 WDW Pre-Trip Report! No sooner had I finished the Trip Report for our January holiday, I made a start on this… as we’d already done quite a few things in preparation.

So before we get ahead of ourselves, for those new to my Trip Reports, here's a very quick rundown on who we are:

Me - (Brett) aka Happyhaunt1000 on here (and on other social media platforms)
Extremely excited about going back to WDW twice within a year. I'm finding myself enjoying each trip more and more. You'd think I'd be bored of going back to the same place all the time, but it's quite the contrary! My skills include itinerary development, fastpass booking and ADR research.


Me in Tiki mode

Jo - aka Tarnabanana83 on the Dibb (and with or without the ‘83’ on other social media platforms)
Let's take two things Jo loves, WDW and Christmas, and mash them together! To say she's looking forward to this trip would be an understatement! She's chief planner when it comes to booking the flights and accommodation… ya know, the important stuff. As well as being the brains and beauty within the Harding gang, her skill set includes creating holiday spreadsheets (using data I provide, of course), being the Financial Director in control of all Harding money and collecting Dooney and Bourke bags like they’re pressed pennies!


Jo plans on drinking many more of these now that she’s not breastfeeding like on our last trip!

Marceline - so cool, she doesn't even have an alias!
19 months old. When I last wrote about her she was a cute little 9 month old, happy to be carried around the parks the whole time like the Queen of Sheba. Well that's all changed now. She's a walking, talking manipulator who has Jo and I wrapped around her little fingers. Expect chaos from her during this trip!


Growing up fast

Ok, let's go back to how this trip came about. In July 2016 whilst sitting on the sofa on a Sunday night watching Florida vlogs, (everyone does that when there's no NFL… right?) someone’s vlog popped up from their Christmas trip and Jo turned to me and said “When are we going to see the Christmas decorations at Disney again?”

I couldn't answer the question as it wasn't something I'd really thought about! We’d gone to Florida in late November/Early December 2011 and back then, although we were big Disney fans, we weren't the uber-nerds we are today. We’d felt a little bit disorientated walking around in the sunshine, wearing shorts and t-shirts, and seeing Christmas decorations up, and hearing Christmas songs instead of the usual park background music. We were also a little underwhelmed with some of the decorations in the parks... we’d been to Disneyland Paris and seen their Christmas theming the previous year and it seemed (at the time) better than in the Florida parks!

All that being said, I quite liked the idea of revisiting Florida at that time of year, especially as we’d be doing it as a family. I suggested Jo look up the price of staying on property for a week at the end of November 2017. She didn't need to be told twice, and minutes later was showing me a fantastic price for Beach Club that was coming in cheaper than a week at Saratoga Springs! The ‘free dining’ offer was still on, and neither of us could believe how cheap it was for one week! Now, when I say cheap, it wasnt ‘week in Skegness’ cheap, but it was considerably less than what it would normally cost to stay at BC.


Can't wait to stay here.





We didn't book there and then though, we just let the idea of having a second trip in 2017 ferment for a couple of weeks before, once again while sitting in front of the TV on a Sunday night watching Disney vlogs, we just went ahead and pulled the trigger! Team Harding now had TWO 2017 WDW trips booked!

We were extremely excited about not only having a second trip inside of a year planned, but also that we would be staying at Beach Club. We immediately started talking about how best to spend that week and decided that our overall priority would be seeing anything Christmas related. The shows, the resort decorations, the parades and of course, attending Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party! But that was as far as our discussions on this trip went, because in less than 6 months we’d be in WDW for Marceline's first trip and we were still planning for that. We decided not to talk about it and just focus on the January trip. At least… that was the plan!

Skip forward three months to early November 2016, and I get a message while I’m at work from Jo saying “I've done something bad!” I ask her what she’s done, and she tells me that she’s changed the stay at Beach Club from one week to two weeks! As ‘bad’ things go, it's pretty damn good! She said that she’d been thinking about adding the second week for a while as she was keeping an eye on flight prices and they weren't any more expensive if we flew home a week later. Plus, to get the free Dining Plan we’d had to pay for the 14 day Disney ticket anyway… so it was only another week in the hotel that we’d really be paying for.

She hadn't actually discussed any of this with me, but knew I’d be ok with it… and had even taken into account that I'd carried over some extra holiday into 2017, so knew I'd be able to do two two-week WDW holidays! And she was right… I didn't have any issue with her making this kind of change… who would?!

Jo then sorted out the flights, booking two seats with Virgin in Premium Economy at a really good price during a sale. But no sooner had we made some progress in the planning of this Beach Club trip, then once again, anything to do with this holiday was put to one side so we could finalise everything for our January 2017 WDW adventure (link is HERE if you’re interested in the Trip Report for that one).

As I've already mentioned, January 2017 was Marceline’s first WDW trip at the grand old age of 9 months… and it was a roaring success. Her development jumped forward leaps and bounds and in the months since we've returned she's blossomed into quite the little lady. She went from cruising around the furniture in Florida, to tentatively taking her first steps a little bit before her first birthday, to now basically running and jumping around the house non-stop! Teeth have sprouted through front and centre, with a few back ones coming in now... and she's trying her best to talk ALL THE TIME, with her favourite words being Duck (which was actually her first word), dog, dad, grandad (or ‘nandad’ as she says it) Stitch, up, down, fish, bubbles, buggy, cake, teeth and pleeeease (whenever she wants something). She's still making friends wherever she goes… waving and smiling at everyone and everything (including inanimate statues of Labradors at the local shops!) She goes to nursery once a week now Jo’s back at work, and the staff love her happy, smiling demeanour… and we as parents really couldn't be more proud of her.





We realise that as much as our January 2017 trip was something very different for me and Jo, November 2017 will a whole new ball game. In January, Marceline was basically an accessory the whole time who occasionally needed a feed or bum change... and was either being pushed around in a buggy, or strapped to my chest in the carrier. But now we have a child that can walk and run(!) and is curious about everything, so wants to investigate the whole time. Everything, to her, is something new and exciting (even when it really isn’t new or exciting)!

Even though she was well behaved at nearly all of the places we ate at in January, she did have her moments. So to get her more used to restaurants and sitting in a highchair in public with lots of distractions, we’ve been eating out more as a family and it's yielding positive results. Once she’s finished eating though, she just wants out of the highchair… which can result in hissy fits, so there's still room for improvement between now and when we arrive in WDW!

Which actually leads on nicely to talking about some of the ADRs we've booked. What we’ve tried to do is book a mix of places that we think she will enjoy (like Coral Reef) and places that we want to try (like Homecomin’). I'm not going to bore you with all the places we've booked ADRs for (plus I’d like you to come back and read the actual Trip Report!) so I’ll tell you about just a few, and why we chose them.

Coral Reef - We ate at Coral Reef many years ago, and while the food was ok, the giant aquarium is the thing that's bringing us back to this place. After visiting Pets at Home on many occasions, Marceline became a bit obsessed with the brightly coloured fish for sale. This resulted in us getting her a tank and some fish for her room (not from Pets at Home I hasten to add!)… of course that’s a totally normal first birthday present! So we thought we’d take her here so she can watch the fish, sharks and turtles while she tucks into her meal. Does seem pretty guilt-inducing to be eating fish while looking at the fish swimming around, but I'm sure I'll cope!

Homecomin’ - this is somewhere that we’re seeing nothing but positive reviews for. After browsing through the online menu, both Jo and I can see that there are many items that we want to try... so don't be surprised if, like The Skipper Canteen last year, we visit this place more than once!

‘Ohana - Yes, I know I wasn't enthusiastic in my initial review of this place in the TR for the January trip. BUT at the end of the report I went back and said that in hindsight I was probably too harsh... so we've decided to give it another go. Instead this time we’re going back to experience their character breakfast which features Marceline's all time favourite… Stitch. This is one of the meals I'm most looking forward to as I think she’ll be out of her tiny little mind when she sees giant Stitch and gets to cuddle him!

Via Napoli - Jo and I have been here once before and loved it. And seeing as we have a kid that loves pizza too (whose kid doesn't?) this was a no-brainer for an early dinner.


I wish Jo looked at me like she’s looking at that pizza!


That didn't last long!

So that's just four of the 10 ADRs we've booked. We’ve allocated all but three of our Table Service credits, which we’re holding back to see if there’s something else we fancy doing while we’re out there. This will be my 13th trip to WDW and Jo’s 12th, and it wasn't really until we started staying on property and getting the Dining Plan that we ate at Disney restaurants. As such, there are many places that we should've eaten at by now, but haven't. In early trips we tended to go to the same old places all the time because we liked the food… but we’re trying to change it up each trip so each one feels fresh and just not a repeat of previous holidays. So that’s why we’ve not booked ADRs for California Grill or Skipper Canteen this time round, even though the view from CG was amazing and that chicken dish from SC was the best thing I ate last trip!

Obviously we'll also have a load of Quick Service dining credits to use. We’ll be trying to apply the ‘try new places’ strategy, but I feel this is a little harder as the menus are more limited and we might hit a point in the day where we just need to eat something quick, and dive into somewhere familiar!

Every time we go to WDW I try and think of new ways to make the trip different. To add a little bit of fun this time (not that it's going to be lacking in fun, I’m sure) I came up with the idea of picking random Disney films or attractions and wearing t-shirts related to that specific thing… with each of us wearing a different design (not that I'm against wearing matching tops, but thought it would be more interesting if they were different). We've come up with a fairly long list of things to choose from, including a few obscure movies. I had suggested doing this every single day… but aside from the fact that all of us have some clothes we want to wear that aren’t themed to the movies/attractions on the list, the cost of buying 42 new t-shirts for all of us is not really viable. So instead we’ll be doing it maybe three or four times during the trip, and the hashtag we’ll be using on those days is not our normal #TeamHarding… but instead #ThemeHarding! (See what I did there!?)

Another idea (and one that I shouldn't have been so excited about) was purchasing a new, rather expensive backpack and having it become ‘THE’ backpack for all future Harding WDW holidays. We’ll be adding fan-made enamel pins and patches to it in the build up to each trip and will become something of a family heirloom!




Just a few of the patches and pins we’ll be showcasing on our backpack

The problem with buying these amazing fan-made pins and patches is that they’re usually being sold by designers in the US… which means, once you’ve ordered two or three pins from different sellers, the shipping fees start to mount up and there are also potential customs fees to pay once they get here. When Jo mentioned this dilemma to Vicky (vics18 on the Dibb) she told her she’d signed up with Fairytale Personal Shopper, who provides a personal shopping/grocery delivery/package holding service in the Orlando area, and said it might be worth looking into. Jo being Jo, she checked out the website straight away and contacted them to get a bit more information. Basically for a $15 fee, Beth will hold packages that you have delivered to her (avoiding international shipping charges if ordering from US sites), and not only go to Publix/Walmart/Target etc to pick up any groceries you want, but also shop for any merchandise in the Disney parks/Disney Springs and Universal that you might want. She’ll then deliver everything to you at your resort once you arrive. Needless to say, we signed up straight away and she’s been amazing! The first thing Jo asked her to pick up was an Alex and Ani Epcot 35th Anniversary bangle which was an exclusive released at the D23 convention. Only leftover stock was going to make it into the park, so as soon as Jo saw it was available in Mouse Gear she emailed Beth and the following day she was the proud owner of said bangle. Now there is a possibility she didn’t need Beth to go and pick this up, as there might still be stock by the time we get there, but she didn’t think it was worth the risk! Since then, Beth has managed to get us some more Epcot 35th merchandise that was selling out fast... but I’m most impressed with the fact that she braved the long line at Trader Sam’s to acquire a couple of the very limited edition Hitchhiking Ghosts tiki mugs, for which I’ll be forever grateful! We’ve also ordered quite a few t-shirts, pins and a couple of patches from independent artists/designers we follow on Instagram, and had them delivered to Beth for her to hold on to until we arrive in November. For merchandise collectors like Jo and I, this service is a huge deal! It means that we’ll no longer miss out on seasonal/festival merchandise if we’re not there at the right time. I can see this is going to be a service we’ll use in the lead up to every WDW trip we have planned!


(Beth’s website)

For those that read our previous report, you’ll know how much we loved park hopping during that trip, and a big aid to that was the Express Transportation. Well in mid-August, Disney announced that they’d be stopping this service. This news went pretty much unnoticed by a lot of people, as it was around the same time as the closure of Universe of Energy and The Great Movie Ride… but, for us, Disney taking this service away hurt more than them removing either of those attractions. In fact, for us it was possibly on par with Maelstrom going. For a park hopping family like ourselves, this service offered us an easy way get around with a baby. And I feel really bad for some of you who, after hearing me singing the praises of this service, told me that you were hoping to try it out when you were there. I did, however, hear from an Instagram friend that when she’d spoken to a CM they said it might come back. Oh how I hope that's true… because I'm not entirely sure how much this will impact plans we’ve provisionally made about how we’re going to attack the parks. (One of those plans being that no matter which park we were at, we’d always get the ET back to Epcot at the end of the night, and then enjoy a slow walk through the park and out of the International Gateway over to Beach Club. But it looks like that's in the bin now!)

The only thing left for us to do come early September was countdown until the 26th of the month when we’d be able to book our FPs. Well, that was until I made the suggestion that we should stay in a hotel at the airport the night before flying… that way we can do Twilight Check-In and have a somewhat relaxing morning on Travel Day instead of worrying about getting to the airport on time. Even though it was me suggesting the idea, it was Jo (obviously) who looked into the cost, and at £52 for a family room, (cheaper than I thought it would be) we booked a night at the Premier Inn, Gatwick North. What this means now is we have to be fully packed and ready to go by Thursday night, as I’ll be coming home early from work on the Friday and we’ll have to leave almost immediately to avoid the Friday night traffic at the Dartford crossing!

Before our Fastpass+ booking day, we needed a rough idea of what we’d want to do in each park, and while we’d still book the occasional FP for a thrill ride, the priority would be getting Marceline onto attractions. So this meant sitting down for a couple of hours at the beginning of September to plan our itinerary, and factor in where we’d be each day in relation to our ADRs. In some cases we had to pencil in two or three scenarios of FPs we would want, as our itinerary for that day would be dependant on what we were able to book a day or two before, i.e. if we could get a Flight of Passage FP one day, we wouldn’t be greedy and book another one for the following day!

When the day arrived, I knew I'd be tied up in knots at work (figuratively speaking, not literally) so Jo said she’d do the bookings. At 11:53 I picked up my phone to send Jo a ‘good luck’ message and was greeted with a message from her saying ‘You going to be able to do FPs?’ She’d had a midday meeting dropped on her at the last minute and she wasn't going to be able to do them. It meant that I had to stop right in the middle of processing the weekly payroll and juggling calls/emails from solicitors about a redundancy process I was advising on! As you lot will know though, when FP day rolls around you have to drop EVERYTHING or you'll end up with Aladdin’s Flying Carpets and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor as your only options! So I logged into the app on my phone and started. Immediately I hit an issue. For some reason Jo’s name appeared twice when it came to putting our party together, and the Jo that was automatically there as the first name in the group wasn't linked to the Beach Club booking. I decided to remove her from the group and add the ‘other Jo’ (not you Nips!) into the group and as soon as I did it sprung into life and I was ready to go.

My first priority was skipping Sunday and Monday and jumping to Tuesday to try and secure a much-coveted FP for Flight of Passage. We were looking for an early evening slot as Tuesday daytime had been earmarked as a shopping day, so we’d be heading into the parks later in the day. Without any problems I was able to get a 17:20 FP. Brilliant, now to try and get Na’vi River Journey… but I couldn't see it as an option. Perhaps all the late night FPs for that attraction were gone… oh well, we’d have to settle for an 18:50 Kilimanjaro Safaris instead and not bother booking a third. It was only later on that I realised you can't book both Pandora attractions on the same day… a lot like the tier system they have in Epcot and Hollywood Studios. I guess as they’re so new and popular it gives everyone a fair chance to get on at least one of them.

Now that we had FoP booked on Tuesday, I had to go back and book Sunday and Monday’s FPs. And seeing as the supposedly simple task of booking those two FPs at AK had taken nearly 10 minutes on my phone I decided to switch to my pc. I logged in, selected the correct Jo, added my name to the group and started picking Sunday's attractions. It was much easier doing it on my PC and had taken me a fraction of the time. As I clicked to change to Monday's date, the little spinning wheel appeared on my screen and didn't stop spinning until a new page loaded to inform me that Disney were experiencing technical difficulties and the FP booking system was temporarily unavailable. It's ok though… there was a little picture of Olaf from Frozen on the screen to lessen the blow of this terrible news! I tried refreshing and reloading a few times but it kept going back to Olaf. I know that the site crashing is a fairly regular occurrence just after 12pm, when people are all rushing there at the same time but have never experienced it myself. It's truly frustrating, especially as I had a million and one things to do in work and really couldn’t afford any delays!

Purely out of curiosity I opened the My Disney Experience app on my phone again to see if I got the same message. It let me into the FP booking page, I clicked on Monday’s date… and voilà, I was in! Seems that the app and the PC booking systems aren't linked! It was now 12:25 and I'd only only manage to so far book five FPs! Luckily the rest of the booking went as smoothly as I could've hoped for. I even had time to tinker around with the times to get everything a bit more streamlined with back-to-back slots. At 1:45pm…yes, 1:45pm, I was finally finished (part of this was due to the fact that I’d had to take numerous work related calls and also deal with the unexpected delivery of a massive boardroom table that I'd ordered!) But it was done… and we’d got everything we wanted!

Later that night, Jo had a proper opportunity to look at what I'd booked and when I'd booked it for. She played around and changed a few of times and even cancelled one FP entirely… and I think, we’re now finished and we can tick ‘FP BOOKING’ off the To-Do list. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if we tinker a little more between now and departure time!

And that's pretty much it… less than a month to go and I ‘think’ we’re ready. It's now just a case of ticking the days off the calendar!

There are going to be a few people we know out in WDW around the same time, and we've arranged to meet up, say hi, and maybe grab a eggnog in World Showcase… but this won't be like the ‘spend every day with other people’ kind of trips we've had in the past. Those days/nights were immensely enjoyable, but for the foreseeable future, they'll have to go on the back burner as the focus switches to me, Jo and Marceline enjoying our time together as a family, in a place we love more than any other. All that being said… if you do happen to see us in the parks, please do come and say hi!

My ‘family’ comment leads on nicely to a little teaser I'll share... the Hardings have already got their next trip booked! We’re going again in April 2018 and will be out there for Marceline's 2nd birthday. We’ll not be alone though, as Jo’s mum and dad will be coming with us. We’ll all be together for the first 10 days, before Beryl and Steve head off on a cruise for a week out of Port Canaveral… giving them a week on their own, and also giving us some time in WDW as a trio. We’ll be staying at our spiritual home of Saratoga Springs and the trip will be for 18 days! Not quite 3 weeks, but close enough. That's all I'll say about this trip for the time being, but what this means is you'll not have to wait long to read about our Beach Club trip as I'll need to start posting a couple of weeks after we get back if I'm to get it all uploaded and finished before we head off again in April.

So that, my friends, is the end of this PTR. Apologies for the lack of photos, but fear not I’ll more then make up for it in the Trip Report! As previous readers will know, you'll be able to follow our adventures live (well, not properly live, but you know what I mean) on Instagram and Twitter if you so wish.

Thank you as always, for taking the time to read my scribblings. Thank you to Jo for editing said scribblings, and also painstakingly uploading them. I hope you'll all come back and read the Trip Report proper, and remember… I love you byeeeeeeeee xxx

[Pussycat Doll]

Looking forward to reading your trippie, might even bump into you in April!

[Gev]

Yay another Team Harding trip! So glad you got your priorities right and left the payroll! There's always plenty of time before sending the bacs - isn't there?! Can't believe how Marceline is growing up, she is adorable and it sounds like you're going to have quite the adventure with her! Always enjoy your trippies and have just finished Marceline's first; now looking forward to this one.xx (By the way, have to say Jo looking gorgeous in that last photo).

[eeyoremad]

I loved your last trip report and can't wait for your next one. Marceline has grown so much, she is beautiful

[Excited6910]

19 months!?! That’s gone so fast! Marceline is adorable and I can’t wait to hear what she makes of Disney this time around 😊 hope you have the best adventure!

[sheluk]

Yay can’t wait for this - my favourite time of year at Disney for sure!
So curious about your BC deal
must remember to look next summer for winter ‘19 then (likely to be our next trip).

[Redrach1903]

How exciting! I can’t wait to read all about when you’re back and I’ll enjoy your Instagram posts while you’re there no doubt!

Love the rucksack idea. You should name it...

Marceline is such a cutie! Really looking forward to seeing her reaction to meeting Stitch! He’s one of my faves too! Hahahaha!

[EJSakaAnna]

You’re spoiling us Harding family, 2 trip reports in 1 year! Sounds like a fab trip, I’d love to stay at The Beach Club. Marceline looks so grown up, she’s adorable.
Have a great time, I’ll be following on Insta xx

[princess1706]

Wahooo I've been waiting for his. Can't wait for the trip report! X

[Cinderella]

Looking forward to this report 👍