Just Put the Money Down!--A January 2019 Pre-Trip Report FINAL UPDATE 1/10/2019

Frustration BUT FastPass Success(!!!)

Now that I have acquired my FastPasses (which I will discuss at length in a moment), I have spent a little bit more time looking at Park Hours, etc. And a few things I have realized kind of irritate me. . . First of all, there are 2 park days toward the end of the trip, January 18th at Magic Kingdom and January 19th at Animal Kingdom have extra magic hours in the morning. This is not awful in and of itself, per se, but I tend to want to avoid Extra Magic Hour parks because the rumor is that they have higher crowds during the day. Too late now to switch around those days. . . It's alright though. But there is something genuinely annoying. I have a (technically) pre-park opening breakfast at Be Our Guest on the 18th at the Magic Kingdom, but since the Extra Magic Hours starts at 8 it no longer really gets me in the parks any earlier. :faint:

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(I'm not really that upset, LOL).

But, onto a MUCH happier subject! My FastPasses!!!!

I got EVERYTHING I wanted, pretty much WHEN I wanted it!!! :cheer2::flower:

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(I am this happy though).

Magic Kingdom on January 13th:
7DMT 9:15-10:15
BTMR 10:20-11:20
Haunted Mansion 11:30-12:30

Epcot on January 14th:
Frozen Ever After 9:10-10:10
Mission Space 10:25-11:25
Spaceship Earth 11:35-12:35

Hollywood Studios on January 15th:
Tower of Terror 9:00-10:00
Rock n Rollercoaster 10:25-11:25
Slinky Dog Dash 1:15-2:15

Animal Kingdom on January 16th:
Flight of Passage 9:00-10:00
Expedition Everest 10:05-11:05
Kilimanjaro Safari 11:20-12:20

Hollywood Studios on January 17th
Slinky Dog Dash 9:45-10:45
Star Tours 10:55-11:55
Tower of Terror 11:55-12:55

Magic Kingdom on January 18th
Space Mountain 9:05-10:05
Jungle Cruise 10:20-11:20
Pirates of the Caribbean 11:40-12:40

Animal Kingdom on January 19th
Flight of Passage 9:25-10:25
Kilimanjaro Safari 10:25-11:25
Expedition Everest 11:25-12:2
5

2 Flight of Passage FastPasses AND 2 Slinky Dog Dash FastPasses AND 7DMT!!!!

With some strategic rope dropping, we'll get to ride all the e-tickets!

Hooray!!

Now time to assemble the daily itineraries. . .


 


My opinion is that a good touring plan matters more than the crowd level. If you have your plan and your fastpasses and are semi-flexible, you can have a great time regardless of crowds. But that's just me. You have some great fastpasses, and you can always ditch the parks and come back later if the crowds get too much for you!
 
Nice work on the fast passes!! So exciting!
Thank you! Feeling good about it too!

I feel like this is debatable... It will be ok!
I'm glad that you feel that way, though it seems most touring strategies with WDW are debatable. :rolleyes1 LOL

My opinion is that a good touring plan matters more than the crowd level. If you have your plan and your fastpasses and are semi-flexible, you can have a great time regardless of crowds. But that's just me. You have some great fastpasses, and you can always ditch the parks and come back later if the crowds get too much for you!

:thumbsup2 That's right, and I feel we can get a good plan together.
 


How About a Throwback?
As of today it has been 376 days since we got back from WDW and there are only 41 days until we are there again. So, with those hugely important dates in mind, how about a throwback? To the year 2007... When my family went to WDW for 9 days. Of course Jacob wasn't there, because, you know, I wasn't married to him when I was 12. Nor did I really even know him. . . So without further ado, a journey back in time to when my hair was frizzy and my teeth were in braces.


Our first day was spent at Epcot, that much I recall. . .

How about this relic? Universe of Energy, talk about a throwback! (Okay, so it was just closed last year, but we've got more old classics coming...)


My princess posing has improved greatly since those days too...


This was taken at Tusker House, where we had a delicious breakfast.

Animal Kingdom had a wonderful parade back in those days.




I remember how I felt when I saw Mickey Mouse up on his float in the parade and all the other guests were cheering for him and it was a really magical moment in a magical parade.

We stayed at Coronado Springs and as a 12 year old I loved the pool there.

Look at the amazing slide!

Another tradition of a bygone era, the nighttime parade at the MK, which was by far my favorite parade. It was beautiful and I recall Peter Pan talking to me because of my Pirates of the Caribbean necklace that I was so proud to wear as a kid.

My brother and I have a history of a love for Winnie the Pooh.

We also enjoyed another Character Meal at Liberty Tree Tavern. It's not a character meal anymore, but the characters were really cute in their period clothing, especially Minnie Mouse, but I didn't have any good photos of her.

And how about this! DisneyQuest! We had so much fun in there!

I would like to say how brave I feel sharing these incredibly awkward photos of my 12 year old self, LOL. Next time I update, I'll bring you all a real update on our upcoming trip!
 
Is One Party Enough?
So, I just watched this vlog from TheTimTracker about the After Hours event at Animal Kingdom.
Now, I had heard about the event before, but it didn't necessarily appeal to me at first because of the price.... BUT! The video made it look like so much fun AND I want to actually see the Stand-by line for Flight of Passage without, you know, actually having to wait in it.
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(Photo from Theme Park Tourist, since, you know, I've never seen this).
But, the price... I insinuated to my husband (or maybe told him outright) that it would be a lovely Christmas present to have those After Hour Party tickets for January 16. AND if we do get those party tickets, I may move our FastPasses to later in the afternoon and spend our morning Rope Dropping somewhere else. We don't have any dining plans that day so I'm willing to move things around. The more I think about it the more fun it sounds! Anyone else have any experience with After Hour events. This would be our second add on party experience, since we're already going to the after fireworks dessert party at MK the night before.

And we've only got 5 more days to customize our Magic Bands. I have selected Green for myself and Pink for Jacob. When I told Jacob I picked pink for him, he said he didn't want it, but he never told me which color he really wanted. But now he does want it. Okay... So he'll have a pink and purple one from last trip and I'll have green and yellow from last trip.

I'll keep you posted on my work in convincing my husband we need to attend this party.



 
We've only done Disney After hours at Magic Kingdom, but we LOVED it. It was fantastic and worth every penny. If you're an AP holder, you get a discount that's fairly significant...it was $30, not sure how much it is with the new offerings, but it's better than the $5 or so you get with the Halloween/Christmas parties. If you can swing it, do it! Just the fun atmosphere, and ability to ride tons of rides with no waiting--awesome.

If you decide not to do After Hours, you can see the standby queue for FOP without a long wait by hopping in line just before the park closes (like, a minute or two). There will be no fastpasses, so the whole line is standby. We did that in September, and waited 45 minutes, which sounds long, but we were continuously moving, and we dawdled to take lots of pictures. Didn't feel like we were "waiting" in line at all. And then you get to leisurely walk out of the park all by yourself which was fun too. :)
 
Just Weeks Away!
As I type this message we are a mere 29 days away from our upcoming Disney World trip, which means we are no longer talking about months, or even a month, but we're talking about WEEKS! Hooray! That also means our trip is paid for! Hooray again! That did not come without its stress, though. Not that we didn't have the money, but our travel agent didn't post our payment until today. I went to bed last night seriously concerned that I would wake up to an email today that our trip had been cancelled!
:rotfl2:
Needless to say, the trip is still on.

I mentioned earlier in this PTR that I would no longer get in a tizzy over crowd calendar predictions because they change so frequently, but I did get an email alert from touring plans that the park hours have been updated for our week! A few days, MK will be open 1-3 hours later! I'm mostly happy about the changes, but usually longer park hours means higher crowds, BUT, we're not going to worry about it!

Hoping everyone's Christmas preparations are going well! Have a great weekend!
 
We've only done Disney After hours at Magic Kingdom, but we LOVED it. It was fantastic and worth every penny.
Thank you for the feedback!

If you can swing it, do it! Just the fun atmosphere, and ability to ride tons of rides with no waiting--awesome.
I made sure to tell my husband that Araminta18 from the disboards was in support of the After Hours Party! :rotfl2:

Good luck on convince DH! WE are going to do the MK after hours one. I can't wait.
Thanks! The MK one seems really cool too!
It's bitter sweet when they announce longer hours. More time in the park but more people....
Yeah.... Trying to stay positive about it since most of the nights with extended hours we weren't planning to be at MK anyway, so it just gives us more park-hopping opportunities!
 
A Disney Christmas Miracle
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I certainly did! Just before we left for my family's for the Holiday, we got some lovely magical mail!

Our Magic Bands arrived! As you can see, I have Green and Jacob has Pink! I love the vibrancy of the colors we chose this time.

The Disney Magic continued once we got to my parents' home. We got some Christmas money, and Jacob got some belated birthday money... which is all really Disney money.
:rotfl2:
In addition to just plain cold hard cash... I also got some other Disney treasures!

I requested long-sleeved/sweatshirt-type Mickey Mouse apparel and my brother pulled through for me. I'm not sure if I'll wear all of them on our upcoming trip, but I'll at least wear some of them. My mom and dad got me the Animal Kingdom ears. And some Disney gift cards! Woohoo!

I think between the Christmas money and the gift cards... Jacob may be just about ready to commit to the AK After Hours Party!!!! And that is the Disney Christmas Miracle!

17 days away!
 
Packing Preparations
As of today, we are in the single digits! Only 9 days until we board that flight to Orlando! :love:

On New Year's Day, I took the opportunity to do a ton of laundry. (Well, my husband did the laundry, but I told him what to wash). While we were at it, I went ahead and selected and packed my clothes. This go around, Jacob and I are not checking a bag, so I wanted to ensure ahead of time that I could get a week's worth of clothes in my carry-on bag. I just managed to shove them in! And I'm not leaving very much room for souvenirs, but maybe that's a good thing! I'm going to use that as a reason to make sure I behave myself!

On the subject of souvenirs, I think I'm going to budget $200 total this time, and hopefully I don't actually spend that much!

On the list of things we need to get ASAP to prepare for the trip: travel size toothpaste, eye drops for contact lens wearers, and perhaps most importantly, a fuel rod. There's probably more stuff, but that's all I can think of right now! I think I don't want to carry a purse, but maybe I'll get a fanny pack?
 

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