Now a trip report:MNSSHP, Magicbands, FP+, refillable mugs and one Peter Pan costume!

[traceyg]

Cast of characters:
Myself: Disney fiend
DH- NOT a Disney fiend but decided he wanted to have fun with the two year old
DS- 2 year old Disney fiend extraordinaire! I'm teaching him well!! Loves all things Mickey, Peter Pan and Jake right now.

We are only going for a very short weekend trip this time.

We are DVC members. We pay our annual dues monthly to show for it too! lol We bought back in August of 2012 and have taken one DVC trip and three non-DVC trips. We have a huge trip planned for next June. I have a 2bedroom value and a studio value booked at AKV- Jambo. With all of our points allocated to the June trip I didn't think much of an October trip until um about a week ago..... but then I decided at the very last minute that I really wanted to take the two year old to MNSSHP and lo and behold there are NO DVC rooms available. There was, however, a 30% off rate through CRO. I wasn't sure on money when I booked so I went with the lowest price (AS Music). I have since called numerous times to upgrade and lo and behold there's nothing available through the 30% off rate anymore either. I've even looked online to check and just forgo the 30% and there's virtually NOTHING out there as well. I will keep checking until the last minute but I am pretty certain that we are going to be "music goers"! I'd sleep on somebody else's floor to be at WDW so alas I'm NOT complaining (much). Even DH, who is not a Disney fan like myself, said that once you stay DVC that you are just spoiled. I've even looked on the rent boards to rent an already booked stay through a DVC member, nope nada.

I have been stalking My Disney Experience and dining reservations for the last week too. I am wanting to get the two year old into Hollywood and Vine to see Jake. So far I have a reservation at Boma for the night we fly in, 7:50am at Kona the next morning, a 9:25 at H&V and a 1:45 at H&V. HS opens at 8 that morning. I already have FP+ at Playhouse Disney, TSMM and The Great Movie Ride:
Disney Junior - Live on Stage! 10:10 - 10:25 am
Toy Story Midway Mania! 11:10 - 12:10 pm
The Great Movie Ride® 12:10 - 1:10 pm
I've kept all three dining ressies so far because I like the idea of going to Kona for breakfast and then H&V for lunch. I'm a little nervous though because I'd really like to get to MK before 4 and start riding some things before the official party starts so that we can concentrate on the party itself. Oh well, we are DVC members...we'll go back, right?!? I may just cancel the Kona and 1:45 H&V and just do breakfast with Jake at 9:25 and be done with it for the day. decisions decisions! It's hard to not be a theme park commando after all these years! My DH just worked 8 days (16-20 hour days) straight so I haven't had a chance to get his thoughts, so as soon as I talk to him I will cancel what I don't use. I HATE it when people clog up the systems for maybes. For about 24 hours I've been THAT girl! ugh!

I have our passes to MNSSHP. I have multiple PH/non exp tickets for myself that are still good. I need to buy DH his PH in the next few weeks. So far I haven't been able to add him to the FP+ times. I'll probably buy his PH tickets tomorrow and see if I can add all of that. I'm guessing that's the glitch. I'm wondering if when the June trip opens up if it will let me plan PH+ without having everyone's tickets added since it will under DVC. We are taking ALL the kids and the grandparents so I am hoping it's a "yes" because I don't know if there are enough hours in a day to add ticket numbers, reservations etc etc. Dad is retired military too so his tickets will be bought the day they get there. I'm going to be really bummed if it won't let me link their FP+ to ours. They go to spend time with the baby and FP+ would be awesome for this trip.

FYI: For those of you worried about PH+ and UT etc. My tickets are from the Princess Marathon in 2009. There's a way to add the tickets through MDE by choosing the way your ticket looks and then adding a number from a barcode. I'm guessing that if you buy your tickets through UT (or another vendor) that it would do the same thing. When I added mine it told me how many days I have left on that ticket too. I guess you could use it to check if you have any days left on tickets sitting around your house too.

I think that because I registered my tickets through MDE it shows I have PH's and through them and my resort reservation it gets treated like I am ready to go. I am also guessing that since my husband doesn't have a park ticket that he's been excluded from the "fun".

MNSSHP tickets do not entitle you to PH+ passes. ****Edit- YES! they do! You can only have ONE park per DAY, and since I have DHS picked it won't let me do both. Since we are only spending a short amount of time at DHS I am leaving the PH+ there, but it WILL let me change the FP+ to MK if I want to do those attractions instead.

My DH does get a Magic Band though. For whatever reason it just showed up yesterday on MDE. It had not been there before yesterday, I looked numerous times. I ordered different colored ones for each of us including the two year old. I'm glad he's getting one too because that would have been a catastrophe!

So as it stands:
I am stalking the dining boards for a 11ish reservation to H&V.
I bought the two year old his Peter Pan costume...cute cute!

I ordered our bands, made dining reservations, bought our airfare and made resort reservations.
Things left to do: order PH's for DH and set him up on the PH+ system. I may add the dining plan too. I'm still toying with that idea. I need to buy and customize a blue nightgown for my Wendy dress and make a big bow for my hair and find a blue and white striped shirt for my DH to be Smee. (oh and a red hat for him too.....shhhh!)
Updates coming soon....

 

[traceyg]

PHs bought for DH! MDE let me add DH to the FP+ so THAT was the glitch!
Magic Bands have been shipped and UPS tracking said that they will be here today. I just ordered them yesterday! Crazy!
Still no luck on dining reservations for H&V, however I did get an earlier ressie for Kona so even the earlier H&V reservation is doable.
I think we will upgrade DH's PH to an annual pass once we get there. After I bought it I started looking at 5-7 day PHs (for the June trip) and realized that its just about the same price as an annual pass through DVC.
I think I am going to rent a car instead of doing ME. I want to get to Disney asap and not take a chance on missing Boma. I wonder if they will let us go to AKL instead of ASMovies on ME to make our dinner reservation and then just catch an internal bus and transfer to ASMovies later on. We are flying Spirit so we will have only carry-ons. (Spirit is reasonably priced as long as you don't try to choose a seat or check in a bag so we do neither).
I'll call Disney in a bit and ask about that.
Back to counting down the days and stalking the dining reservations sight. Oh and looking for costumes for DH and myself!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Wow! sounds like you have an awful lot planned for one day. Kona, all morning at HS, then to the Halloween party by 4pm, will your 2 year old last through all that? Just curious, I know my kid would be a complete disaster by 4pm. Would hate for you to make such a big trip for the Halloween party only to have your beasty sleep through the whole thing, or worse yet, be a grouch.

Oh, and the Peter Pan outfit is adorable!

 

[traceyg]

Wow! sounds like you have an awful lot planned for one day. Kona, all morning at HS, then to the Halloween party by 4pm, will your 2 year old last through all that? Just curious, I know my kid would be a complete disaster by 4pm. Would hate for you to make such a big trip for the Halloween party only to have your beasty sleep through the whole thing, or worse yet, be a grouch.

Oh, and the Peter Pan outfit is adorable!

Thanks! He got to choose what he wanted to be and asked for PP. Once I saw the costume in person I was all about him getting it.

I am hoping for some nap time in there during the day. We own a Bob so he's pretty comfortable in it if he should sack out. I wasn't sure if I wanted to risk it and check it at the gate but then I thought about our pace, how comfortable he is in it and figured that's the reason I bought it. I went by Buy Buy Baby the other day and bought a Bob travel bag. We will put the car seat on the stroller through the airport and then fold the stroller down and put it in the bag once we get to the gate. His car seat is a Britax Advocate and it weighs more than he does! I'd rather carry him!
I'm still hoping for an earlier H&V lunch so we can head back to the resort and let him snooze. He'll nap no matter which way we go and he'll wake up pretty happy. He's really about the most laid back kid ever. This trip is about him so if he gets crabby or tired we'll take a break. The FP+ booked attractions and maybe The Muppets are probably all we're doing at DHS. Nothing is set in stone, but I wouldn't be surprised if he lasts until the castle lights are turned off! Lol

 

[traceyg]

They're here! They're here!

The box top:

The side:

Inside the box:

The bands:

Closer:

The two year old wearing his:

The directions in the box explain how to adjust them for smaller arms. The inside also has our names so if you had two people with their hearts set on let's say "pink" there'd be no confusion as to which one is which.
They look to be pretty high quality. I've owned watches that weren't as sturdy. I'm not sure I'm going to like wearing mine but I will definitely give it a try. I'd like to be able to bling it out and also add function features to it.
I'm interested in learning how to differentiate which media it will pick to let me in the park. Potentially I could have multiple tickets and an annual pass all on my MDE account. Right now I have 5 days of unused tickets from 2009, but I may purchase an AP. Adding unused tickets to MDE made me feel good about the security of them but now I'm a little apprehensive about it. This probably isn't the norm for most park goers though.

 

[traceyg]

Counting down the days still!

I guess the two year old is too because every time I put the car in park he asks if we're at Disney World. (We have like a 23 hour drive between our house and there). The other day I told him that we were going to get in an airplane and fly so now every time he sees a plane, which is often, he asks if that is OUR plane. Poor kid! I feel his pain.

I still haven't upgraded our room. This is a first for me! I've called a few times and stalked the WDW website but I haven't found anything that just appeals to me more than ASMusic. Since I'm not using points I really want my cash reservation resort to be a unique experience, since its not likely we'll stay there again. I'm just not really excited about anything, and since I'm not excited then I might as well stay where we're at. The Pirate Rooms at CBR would be fun for the two year old but they're completely sold out. I may end up at POR-R in a royal suite, at least the headboards look fun.

On top of it all, I got the dreaded frig letter. Wherever we end up I need a frig. My son has some health issues and some of his meds need to be kept cool. I need to call or figure out quickly where we're staying!

Here is said two year old on his Gator:

He was riding around the yard when I hear the engine cut off. I go to check on him as he meets me about half way. He says "mom, can you get this thing unstuck, or does dad need to be a hero?" No pressure there! At that point I'd have gotten the tractor and a winch to get it unstuck. And WHERE does he come up with this stuff?!? Lol

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Still following along! Hope your trip goes great and you find a fridge. If you have single day tickets, make sure you DON'T put your MNSSHP tickets on your Magic Bands if you plan to enter the park before 7pm. If you enter the park before 7pm it will use on of your regular admission days instead of the party tickets. Just use the hard tickets for the party.

I'm not sure how it would work if you have single day tickets on the Magic Bands and also add an Annual Pass. Be careful!

 

[traceyg]

Still following along! Hope your trip goes great and you find a fridge. If you have single day tickets, make sure you DON'T put your MNSSHP tickets on your Magic Bands if you plan to enter the park before 7pm. If you enter the park before 7pm it will use on of your regular admission days instead of the party tickets. Just use the hard tickets for the party.

I'm not sure how it would work if you have single day tickets on the Magic Bands and also add an Annual Pass. Be careful!

Oh wow! Thanks! I will be sure to bring them so we don't end up in a snafu! We are definitely going to try to get there early depending on the little guy of coarse. Thanks!!

 

[traceyg]

The Disney Resort Hotel fairy came through! (Well sort of...) We are now booked at Coronado Springs. I'm not that excited about it but it wasn't too much more than ASMusic. I wasn't too excited about OKW last Dec/Jan either but fell in love with it.

I have since changed restaurant reservations too. We now have an 8:25 H&V reservation. If we get there earlier we'll try the actual fast pass machines, if not we'll do breakfast and then use the FP+ linked to our bands. I'm just curious if it will work, and will it still be in the testing phase next June.

I ordered a hat from Etsy the other day for Captain Smee. I'm waiting for it to come in still. I'll post pictures when I get it. I think it may stay "hidden" until the night of the party so DH can't balk until then. I'm still looking for a Wendy dress. You would think that a light blue dress would be the easiest of all things to find. NOPE! I can get flowers, stripes, polka dots, etc etc, but plain ol' blue? No way! I need to try Sears. That involves a trek into town and it's been raining like crazy here.

In a little over a week we will be flying the friendly skies! Single digits!!! In my best Texas drawl "Yehaw!"

 

[DisneyRegulars]

"I'm still looking for a Wendy dress. You would think that a light blue dress would be the easiest of all things to find. NOPE! I can get flowers, stripes, polka dots, etc etc, but plain ol' blue? No way! I need to try Sears. That involves a trek into town and it's been raining like crazy here. "

I feel your pain! It is impossible to find something specific like a light blue dress. But just wait, next summer when you no longer need one, every single store with have one. Can you buy a white night gown and dye it? Or a white dress and dye it? I had really good luck with dying things the color I needed (minus almost burning the house down) when I needed yellow and purple matching t-shirts and shorts.

 

[traceyg]

I feel your pain! It is impossible to find something specific like a light blue dress. But just wait, next summer when you no longer need one, every single store with have one. Can you buy a white night gown and dye it? Or a white dress and dye it? I had really good luck with dying things the color I needed (minus almost burning the house down) when I needed yellow and purple matching t-shirts and shorts.

I went to the mall last night and Sears totally let me down.... yep, blue with flowers! Sigh. I DID however find a blue satin nightgown at Dillards. I was hoping for cotton, but at this point I'm NOT picky! I'll just have to wear something underneath it. I have seen lot of these particular night gowns in cotton. I think I even owned one for the hospital after I had my son a few years back. I was telling my BFF that in a few months I'd see them everywhere. lol I was thinking about dying something if I couldn't get the gown I wanted. It was like a beacon of light from heaven when I walked into the lingerie dept at Dillards...there it was! It was in the "older" section in between the moo-moos and flannel. When I got home I put it on over my clothes to show DH my "find". Now mind you, I'm in Wendy mode with a little old lady night gown on over my clothes. DH says something to the effect that it was sexy. EWWW!! SO wrong on SO many levels!

Mr. Smee's hat came in last night. It is VERY cute. Well I think so anyway, DH probably won't be all about it. lol I'll have to tell him I think Mr. Smee is sexy or something crazy, especially when he's wearing THAT hat! lol He probably won't buy it.

I stopped by The Disney Store too. I found Halloween Mickey pj's for the little man. TOO CUTE! I also found a spinning Mickey light up fan thing. I'll pack it so he can have it during the parade. They also have their little figurine packs on sale. I bought Cars and the Jake set. I have them hidden in the Christmas stash. I think they were originally $12 but I got them for $8.

Counting down the days.....

 

[traceyg]

Gate and Terminal information is up for our flight!

Online check in for Coronado is done!

Laundry just about finished! Packing to commence tonight.

so.close. (sigh) If I can just survive like 48 more hours....

 

[teatah]

I am loving your trip report. I cannot wait to read more.

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[traceyg]

I am loving your trip report. I cannot wait to read more.

Aw thanks! I hope we have enough fun to keep it entertaining!

Following along!

Thanks! I'm ready to report the good stuff!

 

[traceyg]

We met in town so that we could make better time getting to the airport. My husband hadn't put diesel in the truck so we had to stop for that. Then there was road construction on the way to the airport. We arrived and parked there. After check-in I glanced at the clock: 2:50. We're at gate 12 and we're supposed to be flying out of gate 35. Our tickets say boarding at 3:00. After a mad dash through the airport we arrived at our gate. Luckily it was delayed! Yikes! We had time to load Bob in the bag and repackage a few things before it was time to load.

Let me start by saying that if you were on flight 904 out of DFW to MCO, I apologize! My normally sweet little boy became a monster! And not the fun and fuzzy Mike and Sulley type either! Bill Cosby has a skit he talks about that was true to our experience. If you've ever heard it the little boy's name is Jeffrey. My son turned into Jeffrey about 20 minutes after we boarded the plane. He finally succumbed to sleep about 10 minutes before landing at which point the flight attendant came by and let me know that he had to be seat belted into his own seat again. Ugh!

This is a picture of my sweet boy before he turned into Chernabog:

 

[traceyg]

Some pictures of Coronado Springs to get started:

Beautiful resort! Huge! We got lost almost every time we went out the lobby or hotel room door. The little guy loved the water in the center. We ate at Pepper Market twice and it was really good, very slow, but good. My husband got the pizza one night and asked for hamburger and ended up with taco meat hamburger. It turned out to be a nice surprise. We ended up turning the pizza into three meals. We bought one refillable mug from Rix, and the rest was from Pepper Market: chicken nachos, a large pizza, a brownie, ribs, cake, a salad and a brownie.

My take on the refillable mug saga:
I bought a refillable mug basically to try it out because I don't think I got my $10 out of it. Lol I filled it the first time and DH had a sip. I finished it off and went back and had 23 seconds left before refill. I stood there for what seemed like forever, placed my mug under the dispenser and it said 4 seconds. Ugh! 4 terminally long seconds later I was on my way. This was my first and only refill. When you buy a mug, its for that day. So if you buy one at 11:59pm you have 1minute to drink away. I bought mine for our stint at nap time so it was like 2pm when i bought it. It would be better if it were on a 24 hour increment, but oh well. I understand the concept and appreciate its to keep honest people honest (much like locks) but on our way to ME I wanted a drink while we were waiting. Other than Pepper Market where someone else has to help you, there's no way to get a soda on ice. I settled for coffee which was fine but I wanted a coke. I realize I could have bought a bottle, and I'm being picky here, but it doesn't taste as good. Long gone are the days of buying a small coke to leisurely sip on.

Enjoying dinner:

Since our flight was late we ended up missing our Boma reservation. Boo. I called to see what time they closed and was told something like 9:40. We could have made it but when I asked if there was anything available I was told that since we were within that hour that I couldn't make a reservation but I could show up and see if they could work us in. We decided to try Pepper Market. It was all very good. The best part was when I asked about getting the baby a fruit bowl. They were out of pre made bowls but I was told they could make one with what was on hand. They put together an amazing bowl with yogurt dipping sauce. As you can tell it was well worth the $7.99. Great experience!

 

[traceyg]

After dinner we went on a tour of the resort. The baby loved the playground and the sand pit. It was quite a walk. Nothing was really convenient but true to Disney fashion, once you got lost in the details the hike seemed minimal.

 

[traceyg]

After a lap around the resort we headed back to the room. It was a little easier this time to find the section our room was in, unfortunately we couldn't remember the number. Lol after stealthily swiping my band over what I thought was the right room and successfully getting a green light we stumbled in, took showers, brushed our teeth and passed completely out.

Next stop: Hollywood and Vine at DHS.

We stopped at the ticket center and upgraded my DH's PH to an annual pass. That turned into a crazy experience that involved calling a manager. I had linked DH's ticket and my old PHs onto MDE. Somehow they "stacked" themselves together and the CM couldn't do anything without a manager override. After about 10-15 minutes and lots of apologies it was fixed and we were on our way to breakfast.

The food:
HUGE props to Disney! During the reservation process online I put down peanut allergy. Our waitress recognized this on her paperwork and told us that the chef would come out in a minute and walk us through the buffet. About 5 minutes later he came out and gave me a tour of which foods were safe. Very very cool! I wish this were available at more places. Disney at its finest!

The characters:

Basking in the moment:

That was a blast!

 

[traceyg]

On our way to breakfast look who we ran into:

We spent a lot of time at breakfast and ended up being at the end of our FP+ time. We rode The Great Movie Ride, then Toy Story Midway Mania. My DH kept saying that he was going to beat me like a drum and that I might as well give up before starting.... My thought was "challenge accepted!"

I ended up being blue. I had to take a picture to not only make him grovel but so that I have forever proof as to who is the champion of TSMM!

On our way out:

At this point we are late for Disney Jr. Playhouse. I ask the CM at Playhouse if we have time or if we need to come back. She lets me know that there's a Magic Band kiosk at Little Mermaid so I wander over there. The line is about ten deep and it takes forever to get to the front. I'm not impatient but it seems to me that there needs to be multiple kiosks and CMs available during this phase. I finally get to the front and the next FP+ time is at 1:10. It's now 11am and we're getting tired. DH throws out the idea to forgo it until I remind him that the baby lives for all things Playhouse Disney. We head back over there and decide to try the next show which starts in about twenty minutes. I grabbed a Mickey head ice cream bar and a drink, find a shady spot and camp out for a few minutes. We ended up almost not being able to finish our snacks because it was time to get in line. We ended up in the middle about four people back from the stage. Perfect! Since we saw the show we didn't need the FP+ for PHjr after all but we decided we were exhausted from the late night/early morning and that we'd forgo exchanging it once again for something else. We went back to the room and slept like logs for a few glorious hours.

Once we woke up it was time to don our costumes and head to MNSSHP.

There seemed to be tons of people but there was so much going on that everyone was dispersed pretty evenly everywhere and there were really no lines for anything.
First order of business was seeing the big cheese. We have relied on seeing him at Chef Mickeys the last few trips. The line for Mickey tonight was 30 minutes and at first I wasn't too keen on it but I decided this was something the baby would really enjoy so we stuck it out. If you haven't done this, you need to! Wow! Mickey talks! Who knew?!? At first the baby was apprehensive but Mickey worked on warming him up. After a bit Mickey started singing the Hot Dog song and dancing. Our little guy just stared at him like he had no clue what Mickey was doing. But then he warmed up and things got better. Great experience!

Pictures of the que:

So afterwards we got in line to get candy. There was candy with peanuts in it so the baby couldn't dig in. After that we went to Buzz Lightyear. My DH beat me like a drum on this one (notice no pictures for proof?! Lol) folks started lining up for the parade so we camped out and watched most of it. Captain Hook was the highlight for our party.
We left there and went to Winnie the Pooh, Little Mermaid, It's a Small World, Haunted Mansion, Pirates and finally the Magic Carpets. The length of the lines were as fast as our legs could get us to the front. Perfect! We did stop for a Mickey souvenir bucket of popcorn, another Mickey head ice cream bar and a candy corn ice cream cone. Yum!
We stopped and danced with Sulley for a few minutes. Again, DS was apprehensive even though he LOVES Monsters.
Finally 12am showed up and we joined the throngs of folks on the exit out. We stopped at City Hall and I explained about DS having a huge peanut allergy so the CM went to the back and put together a bag of peanut free candy.
I don't know that the weather, the people, the experiences or anything about the trip could have been any better. The only thing I would change is the same as always : more time!