Celebrating 21 in the Most Magical Place on Earth! A Feb. 2020 PTR *TR LINK 3/17

the2ndstar2theright

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jan 7, 2017
Celebrating 21 in the Most Magical Place on Earth!
A February 2020 PTR


Hi everybody, and welcome to another PTR!! If you’re an old friend or a new one, welcome aboard! :welcome: This PTR is a super exciting one for me, even though nothing about this trip is concrete. In fact, it may not even happen. But, we here on the DIS love to share all things Disney, even if it’s a trip that is still a big fat MAYBE.

This trip is (obviously) in celebration of my 21st birthday—and also my solution to a serious case of the Disney blues. I went with my parents in December 2018 (TR link in my signature!) and was realizing that I probably wouldn’t get to go again until my college graduation trip in 2021.

No bueno.


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Sooo…I somewhat-jokingly-but-not-really-jokingly told my mom: we should take a girls’ weekend trip for my 21st birthday. She then said that if that’s what I wanted for my birthday, then she was on board! :cool1:

Unfortunately, my birthday is on a Tuesday, so we can’t go on my actual birthday. But, a couple of weekends later is still pretty close, and, hey, I’m not going to complain about the dates because I’M GOING TO DISNEY!

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For those of you who are new here, I should probably introduce myself.


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My name is Lindsey, and I am a 20-year-old college student who has never really grown up. :tinker:I cry when I see the castle and during Happily Ever After and listen to Disney music more than pretty much any other kind of music. I have been to WDW 13 times, and I am visiting Disneyland Paris for the first time in just 7 days! That PTR can be found HERE if anyone is interested! :D

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This is my mom, Amy, also known as my partner-in-crime. She has been my Disney buddy since 2003, and I seriously cannot wait to celebrate my birthday with my best friend in our favorite place on Earth!

I can't wait to share our planning adventures with y'all! :)


Table of Contents
Our Thoughts as of Now (6/23/19)
Our Thoughts: Updated (8/13/19)
Party of 4!! (9/1/19)
Hotel Update (10/17/19)
Another Hotel Change! (11/12/19)

Double Digits! (11/29/19)
FastPass+ Madness! (01/07/20)
Our Plans! (01/13/20)
New PTR Link! (01/15/20)
Drink & Snack Bucket List (02/02/20)
Single Digits & Magic Bands! (02/19/20)



 
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Popping over from your other PTR. Hoping this trip happens !
 


Our Thoughts as of Now

Figuring out dates for this trip ended up being a little harder than I thought. The weekend immediately following my birthday is both Valentine’s Day and President’s Day weekend, so that was definitely out. The weekend after that is the Princess Half Marathon weekend, so we decided that the last weekend of February would probably be our best bet.

So, we’re obviously still pretty far away from this trip, to the point that we can’t even see flight schedules for our dates yet. Our thought is that we’ll fly down to Orlando on Thursday, be in the parks on Friday and Saturday, and then fly home on Sunday. Because it will be in the middle of a semester, I will have to miss a couple days of class (oops! ;)), but there is a regional airport about half an hour away from campus. Most likely, I will fly out of that airport and just meet Mom in Orlando, so that I don’t have to drive three hours to and from school on either side on the trip.

We’re still doing some price comparisons as far as resorts go. Both Mom and I would love to rent DVC points and stay in one of the villas, but we’re just super hesitant to do that since we can’t cancel it. :confused3That may just be something that we save for college graduation, but we’ll see!
 
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The last weekend of February seems like a really great time to go. Generally low crowds (well, as low as Disney has regularly seen them in the past 10 years!) and it won't be boiling hot.

Even though you can't see flights yet, it looks like you guys have your plans figured out!
 


The last weekend of February seems like a really great time to go. Generally low crowds (well, as low as Disney has regularly seen them in the past 10 years!) and it won't be boiling hot.

Even though you can't see flights yet, it looks like you guys have your plans figured out!

That's definitely what we're hoping! When we went on my actual birthday weekend when I turned 18, we had to deal with high school cheerleading nationals, which was interesting to say the least. Our only hangup with that last weekend is that it is Mardi Gras, but I really don't think that's going to impact the crowds too much. :confused3

It certainly has been interesting to try to talk about things without knowing when the flights are for sure--not to mention my spring class schedule! Though I am not above scheduling my classes around this trip as much as I can lol.

Joining in! No better place to celebrate your birthday! So exciting! :jumping1:

Welcome aboard!! :)

Joining in! What a perfect way to celebrate your 21st birthday.

Thanks for joining in! :D
 
Following along! My sister is the same age as you (she'll be 21 in September and graduating college in 2021 as well). We're actually spending her 21st at WDW (purely coincidental how that came about). As the person planning our trip, I'm interested to read what kind of things you plan on for yours. I'm a lot older so I feel out of touch with what a 21 year old wants to do for their birthday :rotfl:Although my sister and I both love Disney so can't go wrong there!
 
Following along! My sister is the same age as you (she'll be 21 in September and graduating college in 2021 as well). We're actually spending her 21st at WDW (purely coincidental how that came about). As the person planning our trip, I'm interested to read what kind of things you plan on for yours. I'm a lot older so I feel out of touch with what a 21 year old wants to do for their birthday :rotfl:Although my sister and I both love Disney so can't go wrong there!

:welcome: That's so fun!! What better way to celebrate a big birthday?? Hope y'all have the best time!! :D
 
Our Thoughts: Updated

Hello again! I know it’s been a hot minute since I’ve updated this PTR, but it has been one crazy summer. I studied abroad for most of it, and I topped it all off with a trip to Disneyland Paris! (You can read that TR here.) For the small portion of the summer that I was actually in the US, I was traveling around and visiting family. Now, I am moved into my new apartment and getting ready for the start of the new semester, and I thought it was time for me to write an update!

Throughout all the craziness this summer, my mom and I have been talking about my birthday trip. Of course, everything is dependent on my class schedule for the spring, but this is kind of what we’re thinking now.

Our plan at this point is to stay at one of the All Star resorts—either Sports or Music since those are the two we have never stayed at before. Since it’s such a short trip, we want to spend as little as possible, and this way, we’ll do that and still check a resort of our list! We’re planning to get a 2-day park ticket as well.

Depending on my class schedule, we’re hoping that I can drive home Wednesday night. That way, we can fly out early Thursday morning and land in Orlando by mid-morning. We decided that Thursday will be a day that we play by ear. Depending on the weather, we may add a day to our park tickets or maybe even a water park day if it’s warm enough. Or, we may also decide to spend the day at the pool or in Disney Springs.

Friday will be our Epcot day. We’ll eat and drink our way around the world and enjoy our favorite rides. And, of course, we’ll stay for the new fireworks show! pixiedust:

Saturday is our MK day. My hope is to score a lunch ADR for Be Our Guest for this day. BOG is my favorite restaurant, so I’d really like to eat lunch there for my birthday. Of course, we’ll finish the day off with Happily Ever After!

On Sunday we’re thinking we’ll take the earliest flight home that we can. That way, I’ll have time to sleep at the house for a while before I have to drive back to school. As long as I leave the house by 2 or 2:30, it would be fine, so I should have enough time to get a few hours of sleep first.

That’s all we have for now! We obviously haven’t booked anything yet since I don’t know my schedule for the spring. Without a hotel booked, our ADR day for Saturday is just over 3 weeks away, so that will be the first step! :banana:


 
These plans look so exciting!!! Let me know which WS drinks you want to try!!!
 
These plans look so exciting!!! Let me know which WS drinks you want to try!!!

I'm getting more and more excited! Now I just hope that my schedule works out in a way that makes this actually possible. :upsidedow

Definitely! I've been working on a list and I am definitely realizing that I will not be able to try everything I want to in one weekend.:rotfl:
 
Party of 4!!

Hi everybody! Since I last updated this PTR, some very exciting things have happened. We visited my family at the end of July/beginning of August and mentioned this trip to my aunts and cousins. They seemed semi-interested in going, so last week, my mom texted everyone to find out who was serious about wanting to go. Well, wouldn’t ya know it, two of my cousins said they wanted to go if they could afford it, so we started crunching some numbers, and now our party of 2 is officially a party of four!! :banana:



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Our first new addition is
Kelsey, who you might recognize from my high school graduation and post-freshman year TRs! She is 20, like me, and this will be her 5th trip to the World!

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And last but certainly not least is
Emyle (pronounced “Emily”)! She is 23, and this will be her 3rd trip to WDW! She’s not a huge Disney fan like Mom and me, but I think she’s excited about the prospect of eating and drinking around the world in Epcot.

I am honestly so excited that they’re joining us for this birthday bash, and I already can’t wait. Since they told us they were 100% in, we’ve been looking at some different transportation options to try to figure out what makes the most sense for everyone. Emyle and Kelsey live seven hours away from us, and I also have to come from school, so we’re not sure what the best choice is going to be just yet.

We did book a hotel room this week, as well! We got an amazing deal at the Best Western Lake Buena Vista, which is one of the Disney Springs hotels that receives onsite benefits. We’re still keeping an eye out for discounts to stay onsite, but for right now we’re really happy with this option!
 

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